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BIOGRAPHICAL 


AND 


CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


/ 

BY 


WILLIAM  H.  PRESCOTT, 


AUTHOR  OF 

'*  THE  HISTORY  OP  FERDINAND  AND  ISABELLA,”  “  THE 
CONQUEST  OP  MEXICO,”  ETC. 


NEW-YORK: 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS. 

82  CLIFF  STREET. 


1852. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1845,  by 
Harper  &  Brothers, 

In  the  Clerk’s  Office  of  the  Southern  District  of  New- York. 


\%SL 


TO 


GEORGE  TICKNOR,  ESQ., 

THIS  VOLUME, 

WHICH  MAY 

REMIND  HIM  OF  STUDIES  PURSUED  TOGETHER  IN  EARLIER  DAY'S. 

fis  affectionately  33etncatetJ, 

J?  Y  HIS  FRIEND, 

WILLIAM  H.  PRESCOTT. 


ADVERTISEMENT 

O  F 

T  II  E  AMERICAN  PUBLISHERS. 


As  many  of  the  pieces  in  this  volume  are  the  re¬ 
sult  of  more  care  than  is  usually  bestowed  on  peri¬ 
odical  writing,  and  as  they  embrace  a  range  of  study 
very  different  from  that  by  which  Mr.  Prescott  has 
been  hitherto  known  as  an  author,  it  is  thought  that 
the  republication  of  them  in  this  form  will  be  accept¬ 
able  to  his  countrymen.  The  publishers  have  taken 
care  that  the  mechanical  execution  of  the  book  shall 
be  uniform  with  that  of  his  historical  works. 

H.  &  B. 


New-  York,  1845. 


* 

■ 

■  -  •  •  1  ■  .  '  . 
'  .  .v  -  -  ■ 


! ' 


. 


PREFACE 


TO  T II  E  ENGLISH  EDITION. 


The  following  Essays,  with  a  single  exception, 
have  been  selected  from  contributions  originally 
made  to  the  North  American  Review.  They  are 
purely  of  a  literary  character;  and  as  they  have 
little  reference  to  local  or  temporary  topics,  and  as 
the  journal  in  which  they  appeared,  though  the 
most  considerable  in  the  United  States,  is  not  widely 
circulated  in  Great  Britain,  it  has  been  thought  that 
a  republication  of  the  articles  might  have  some 
novelty  and  interest  for  the  English  reader. 

Several  of  the  papers  were  written  many  years 
since ;  and  the  author  is  aware  that  they  betray 
those  crudities  in  the  execution  which  belong  to  an 
unpractised  writer,  while  others  of  more  recent  date 
may  be  charged  with  the  inaccuracies  incident  to 
rapid,  and,  sometimes,  careless  composition.  The 
more  obvious  blemishes  he  has  endeavoured  to  cor* 
rect,  without  attempting  to  reform  the  critical  judg* 
ments,  which,  in  some  cases,  he  could  wish  had  been 
expressed  in  a  more  qualified  and  temperate  man* 
ner;  and  he  dismisses  the  volume  with  the  hope 
that,  in  submitting  it  to  the  British  public,  he  may 
not  be  thought  to  have  relied  too  far  on  that  indul¬ 
gence  which  has  been  so  freely  extended  to  his  more 
elaborate  efforts. 


Boston ,  March  30th,  1845. 


. 

J  1  if 


*■ 


CONTENTS. 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN,  THE 

AMERICAN 

NOVELIST 

• 

Pa«e 

1 

ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND 

•  • 

8 

• 

• 

57 

irving’s  conquest  of  granada 

•  • 

• 

• 

• 

88 

CERVANTES  .... 

•  « 

• 

o 

• 

123 

SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 

•  • 

• 

• 

• 

176 

Chateaubriand’s  English  literature 

• 

• 

e 

245 

Bancroft’s  united  states  . 

•  o 

e 

8 

• 

294 

madame  caldeRon’s  life  in  Mexico  . 

e 

® 

0 

340 

moliere  .... 

361 

ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY  . 

•  • 

« 

• 

• 

410 

POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS 

• 

4 

• 

486 

SCOTTISH  SONG 

♦  « 

• 

• 

• 

568 

DA  PONTE’S  OBSERVATIONS  . 

«  * 

4 

• 

596 

V 

•  V 


f  ,! 


BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL 


MISCELLANIES. 


MEMOIR  OF 

CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN, 

THE  AMERICAN  NOVELIST.* 

The  class  of  professed  men  of  letters,  if  we  ex¬ 
clude  from  the  account  the  conductors  of  periodical 
journals,  is  certainly  not  very  large,  even  at  the 
present  day,  in  our  country  ;  but  before  the  close 
of  the  last  century  it  was  nearly  impossible  to  meet 
with  an  individual  who  looked  to  authorship  as  his 
only,  or,  indeed,  his  principal  means  of  subsistence. 
This  was  somewhat  the  more  remarkable,  consider¬ 
ing  the  extraordinary  development  of  intellectual 
power  exhibited  in  every  quarter  of  the  country, 
and  applied  to  every  variety  of  moral  and  social 
culture,  and  formed  a  singular  contrast  with  more 
than  one  nation  in  Europe,  where  literature  still 
continued  to  be  followed  as  a  distinct  profession, 
amid  all  the  difficulties  resulting  from  an  arbitrary 
government,  and  popular  imbecility  and  ignorance. 

Abundant  reasons  are  suggested  for  this  by  the 
various  occupations  afforded  to  talent  of  all  kinds, 
not  only  in  the  exercise  of  political  functions,  but 

*  From  Sparks’s  American  Biography,  1834. 

A 


2  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

in  the  splendid  career  opened  to  enterprise  of  every 
description  in  our  free  and  thriving  community. 
We  were  in  the  morning  of  life,  as  it  were,  when 
everything  summoned  us  to  action ;  when  the  spirit 
was  quickened  by  hope  and  youthful  confidence ; 
and  we  felt  that  we  had  our  race  to  run,  unlike 
those  nations  who,  having  reached  the  noontide  of 
their  glory,  or  sunk  into  their  decline,  were  natu¬ 
rally  led  to  dwell  on  the  soothing  recollections  of 
the  past,  and  to  repose  themselves,  after  a  tumultu¬ 
ous  existence,  in  the  quiet  pleasures  of  study  and 
contemplation.  “  It  was  amid  the  ruins  of  the 
Capitol,”  says  Gibbon,  “that  I  first  conceived  the 
idea  of  writing  the  History  of  the  Roman  Empire.” 
The  occupation  suited  well  with  the  spirit  of  the 
place,  but  would  scarcely  have  harmonized  with 
the  life  of  bustling  energy,  and  the  thousand  novel¬ 
ties  which  were  perpetually  stimulating  the  appe¬ 
tite  for  adventure  in  our  new  and  unexplored  hem¬ 
isphere.  In  short,  to  express  it  in  one  word,  the 
peculiarities  of  our  situation  as  naturally  disposed 
us  to  active  life  as  those  of  the  old  countries  of  Eu¬ 
rope  to  contemplative. 

The  subject  of  the  present  memoir  affords  an  al¬ 
most  solitary  example,  at  this  period,  of  a  scholar, 
in  the  enlarged  application  of  the  term,  who  culti¬ 
vated  letters  as  a  distinct  and  exclusive  profession, 
resting  his  means  of  support,  as  well  as  his  fame, 
on  his  success ;  and  who,  as  a  writer  of  fiction,  is 
still  farther  entitled  to  credit  for  having  quitted  the 
beaten  grounds  of  the  Old  Country,  and  sought  his 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN.  3 

subjects  in  the  untried  wilderness  of  his  own.  The 
particulars  of  his  unostentatious  life  have  been  col¬ 
lected  with  sufficient  industry  by  his  friend,  Mr. 
William  Dunlap,  to  whom  our  native  literature  is 
under  such  large  obligations  for  the  extent  and  fidel¬ 
ity  of  his  researches.  We  will  select  a  few  of  the 

•r 

most  prominent  incidents  from  a  mass  of  miscella¬ 
neous  fragments  and  literary  lumber  with  which 
his  work  is  somewhat  encumbered.  It  were  to  be 
wished  that,  in  the  place  of  some  of  them,  more 
copious  extracts  had  been  substituted  for  his  jour¬ 
nal  and  correspondence,  which,  doubtless,  in  this  as 
in  other  cases,  must  afford  the  most  interesting,  as 
w’ell  as  authentic  materials  for  biography. 

Charles  Brockden  Brown  was  born  at  Phila¬ 
delphia,  January  17,  1771.  He  was  descended 
from  a  highly  respectable  family,  whose  ancestors 
were  of  that  estimable  sect  who  came  over  with 
William  Penn  to  seek  an  asylum  where  they  might 
worship  their  Creator  unmolested  in  the  meek  and 
humble  spirit  of  their  own  faith.  From  his  earliest 
childhood  Brown  gave  evidence  of  his  studious  pro¬ 
pensities,  being  frequently  noticed  by  his  father,  on 
his  return  from  school,  poring  over  some  heavy 
tome,  nothing  daunted  by  the  formidable  words  it 
contained,  or  mounted  on  a  table,  and  busily  en¬ 
gaged  in  exploring  a  map  which  hung  on  the  par¬ 
lour  wall.  This  infantine  predilection  for  geograph¬ 
ical  studies  ripened  into  a  passion  in  later  years. 
Another  anecdote,  recorded  of  him  at  the  age  of 
ten,  sets  in  a  still  stronger  light  his  appreciation  of 


4  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


intellectual  pursuits  far  above  his  years.  A  visiter 
at  his  father’s  having  rebuked  him,  as  it  would  seem, 
without  cause,  for  some  remark  he  had  made,  gave 
him  the  contemptuous  epithet  of  “  hoy.”  “  What 
does  he  mean,”  said  the  young  philosopher,  after  the 
guest’s  departure,  “  by  calling  me  hoy  1  Does  he 
not  know  that  it  is  neither  size  nor  age,  but  sense, 
that  makes  the  man  1  I  could  ask  him  a  hundred 
questions,  none  of  which  he  could  answer.” 

At  eleven  years  of  age  he  was  placed  under  the 
tuition  of  Mr.  Robert  Proud,  well  known  as  the  au¬ 
thor  of  the  History  of  Pennsylvania.  Under  his 
direction  he  went  over  a  large  course  of  English 
reading,  and  acquired  the  elements  of  Greek  and 
Latin,  applying  himself  with  great  assiduity  to  his 
studies.  His  bodily  health  was  naturally  delicate, 
>/  and  indisposed  him  to  engage  in  the  robust,  athletic 
exercises  of  boyhood.  His  sedentary  habits,  how¬ 
ever,  began  so  evidently  to  impair  his  health,  that 
his  master  recommended  him  to  withdraw  from  his 
books,  and  recruit  his  strength  by  excursions  on  foot 
into  the  country.  These  pedestrian  rambles  suited 
the  taste  of  the  pupil,  and  the  length  of  his  absence 
often  excited  the  apprehensions  of  his  friends  for 
his  safety.  He  may  be  thought  to  have  sat  to  him¬ 
self  for  this  portrait  of  one  of  his  heroes.  “  I  pre¬ 
ferred  to  ramble  in  the  forest  and  loiter  on  the  hill  ; 
perpetually  to  change  the  scene ;  to  scrutinize  the 
endless  variety  of  objects  ;  to  compare  one  leaf  and 
pebble  with  another ;  to  pursue  those  trains  of 
thought  which  their  resemblances  and  differences 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


5 


suggested ;  to  inquire  what  it  was  that  gave  them 
this  place,  structure,  and  form,  were  more  agreeable 
employments  than  ploughing  and  threshing.”  “My 
frame  was  delicate  and  feeble.  Exposure  to  wet 
blasts  and  vertical  suns  was  sure  to  make  me  sick.” 
The  fondness  for  these  solitary  rambles  continued 
through  life,  and  the  familiarity  which  they  opened 
to  him  with  the  grand  and  beautiful  scenes  of  na¬ 
ture  undoubtedly  contributed  to  nourish  the  habit 
of  revery  and  abstraction,  and  to  deepen  the  ro¬ 
mantic  sensibilities  from  which  flowed  so  much  of 
his  misery,  as  well  as  happiness,  in  after  life. 

He  quitted  Mr.  Proud’s  school  before  the  age  of 
sixteen.  He  had  previously  made  some  small  po¬ 
etical  attempts,  and  soon  after  sketched  the  plans 
of  three  several  epics,  on  the  discovery  of  America, 
and  the  conquests  of  Peru  and  Mexico.  For  some 
time  they  engaged  his  attention  to  the  exclusion  of 
every  other  object.  No  vestige  of  them  now  re¬ 
mains,  or,  at  least,  has  been  given  to  the  public,  by 
which  we  can  ascertain  the  progress  made  towards 
their  completion.  The  publication  of  such  imma¬ 
ture  juvenile  productions  may  gratify  curiosity  by 
affording  a  point  of  comparison  with  later  excel¬ 
lence.  They  are  rarely,  however,  of  value  in  them¬ 
selves  sufficient  to  authorize  their  exposure  to  the 
world,  and  notwithstanding  the  occasional  excep¬ 
tion  of  a  Pope  or  a  Pascal,  may  very  safely  put  up 
with  Uncle  Toby’s  recommendation  on  a  similar 
display  of  precocity,  “  to  hush  it  up,  and  say  as  little 
about  it  as  possible.” 


6  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


Among  the  contributions  which,  at  a  later  period 
of  life,  he  was  in  the  habit  of  making  to  different 
journals,  the  fate  of  one  was  too  singular  to  he  pass¬ 
ed  over  in  silence.  It  was  a  poetical  address  to 
Franklin,  prepared  for  the  Edentown  newspaper. 
“  The  blundering  printer,”  says  Brown,  in  his  jour¬ 
nal,  “  from  zeal  or  ignorance,  or  perhaps  from  both, 
substituted  the  name  of  Washington.  Washington, 
therefore,  stands  arrayed  in  awkward  colours ;  phi¬ 
losophy  smiles  to  behold  her  darling  son  ;  she  turns 
with  horror  and  disgust  from  those  who  have  won 
the  laurel  of  victory  in  the  field  of  battle,  to  this  her 
favourite  candidate,  who  had  never  participated  in 
such  bloody  glory,  and  whose  fame  was  derived 
from  the  conquest  of  philosophy  alone.  The  print¬ 
er,  by  his  blundering  ingenuity,  made  the  subject 
ridiculous.  Every  word  of  this  clumsy  panegyric 
was  a  direct  slander  upon  Washington,  and  so  it 
was  regarded  at  the  time.”  There  could  not  well 
be  imagined  a  more  expeditious  or  effectual  recipe 
for  converting  eulogy  into  satire. 

Young  Brown  had  now  reached  a  period  of  life 
when  it  became  necessary  to  decide  on  a  profession. 
After  due  deliberation,  lie  determined  on  the  law ; 
a  choice  -which  received  the  cordial  approbation  of 
his  friends,  wdio  saw  in  his  habitual  diligence  and 
the  character  of  his  mind,  at  once  comprehensive 
and  logical,  the  most  essential  requisites  for  success. 
He  entered  on  the  studies  of  his  profession  with  his 
usual  ardour ;  and  the  acuteness  and  copiousness  of 
his  arguments  on  various  topics  proposed  for  dis- 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


7 


cussion  in  a  law-society  over  which  he  presided, 
bear  ample  testimony  to  his  ability  and  industry. 
But,  however  suited  to  his  talents  the  profession  of 
the  law  might  be,  it  was  not  at  all  to  his  taste.  He 
became  a  member  of  a  literary  club,  in  which  he 
made  frequent  essays  in  composition  and  eloquence. 
He  kept  a  copious  journal,  and  by  familiar  exercise 
endeavoured  to  acquire  a  pleasing  and  graceful  style 
of  writing ;  and  every  hour  that  he  could  steal  from 
professional  schooling  was  devoted  to  the  cultiva¬ 
tion  of  more  attractive  literature.  In  one  of  his 
contributions  to  a  journal,  just  before  this  period, 
he  speaks  of  “  the  rapture  with  which  he  held  com¬ 
munion  with  his  own  thoughts  amid  the  gloom  of 
surrounding  woods,  where  his  fancy  peopled  every 
object  with  ideal  beings,  and  the  barrier  between 
himself  and  the  world  of  spirits  seemed  burst  by  the 
force  of  meditation.  In  this  solitude,  he  felt  him¬ 
self  surrounded  by  a  delightful  society ;  but  when 
transported  from  thence,  and  compelled  to  listen  to 
the  frivolous  chat  of  his  fellow-beings,  he  suffered 
all  the  miseries  of  solitude.”  He  declares  that  his 
intercourse  and  conversation  with  mankind  had 
wrought  a  salutary  change  ;  that  he  can  now  min¬ 
gle  in  the  concerns  of  life,  perform  his  appropriate 
duties,  and  reserve  that  higher  species  of  discourse 
for  the  solitude  and  silence  of  his  study.  In  this 
supposed  control  over  his  romantic  fancies  he  gross¬ 
ly  deceived  himself. 

As  the  time  approached  for  entering  on  the  prac¬ 
tice  of  his  profession,  he  felt  his  repugnance  to  it 


8  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

increase  more  and  more ;  and  he  sought  to  justify  a 
retreat  from  it  altogether  by  such  poor  sophistry  as 
his  imagination  could  suggest.  He  objected  to  the 
profession  as  having  something  in  it  immoral.  He 
could  not  reconcile  it  with  his  notions  of  duty  to  come 
forward  as  the  champion  indiscriminately  of  right  and 
wrong;  and  he  considered  the  stipendiary  advocate 
of  a  guilty  party  as  becoming,  by  that  very  act,  parti¬ 
cipator  in  the  guilt.  He  did  not  allow  himself  to 
reflect  that  no  more  equitable  arrangement  could  be 
devised,  none  which  would  give  the  humblest  indi¬ 
vidual  so  fair  a  chance  for  maintaining  his  rights 
as  the  employment  of  competent  and  upright  coun¬ 
sel,  familiar  with  the  forms  of  legal  practice,  neces¬ 
sarily  so  embarrassing  to  a  stranger ;  that,  so  far 
from  being  compelled  to  undertake  a  cause  mani¬ 
festly  unjust,  it  is  always  in  the  power  of  an  honest 
lawyer  to  decline  it;  but  that  such  contingencies 
are  of  most  rare  occurrence,  as  few  cases  are  litiga¬ 
ted  where  each  party  has  not  previously  plausible 
grounds  for  believing  himself  in  the  right,  a  ques¬ 
tion  only  to  be  settled  by  fair  discussion  on  both 
sides ;  that  opportunities  are  not  wanting,  on  the 
other  hand,  which  invite  the  highest  display  of  elo¬ 
quence  and  professional  science  in  detecting  and 
defeating  villany,  in  vindicating  slandered  innocence, 
and  in  expounding  the  great  principles  of  law  on 
which  the  foundations  of  personal  security  and  prop¬ 
erty  are  established ;  and,  finally,  that  the  most  illus¬ 
trious  names  in  his  own  and  every  other  civilized 
country  have  been  drawn  from  the  ranks  of  a  pro- 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


9 


fession  whose  habitual  discipline  so  w^ell  trains  them 
for  legislative  action,  and  the  exercise  of  the  high¬ 
est  political  functions. 

Brown  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  been  insensi¬ 
ble  to  these  obvious  views;  and,  indeed,  from  one  of 
his  letters  in  later  life,  he  appears  to  have  clearly 
recognised  the  value  of  the  profession  he  had  de¬ 
serted.  But  his  object  was,  at  this  time,  to  justify 
himself  in  his  fickleness  of  purpose,  as  he  best  might, 
in  his  own  eyes  and  those  of  his  friends.  Brown 
was  certainly  not  the  first  man  of  genius  who  found 
himself  incapable  of  resigning  the  romantic  world 
of  fiction,  and  the  uncontrolled  revels  of  the  imagi¬ 
nation,  for  the  dull  and  prosaic  realities  of  the  law. 
Few,  indeed,  like  Mansfield,  have  been  able  so  far 
to  constrain  their  young  and  buoyant  imaginations 
as  to  merit  the  beautiful  eulogium  of  the  English 
poet ;  while  many  more  comparatively,  from  the 
time  of  Juvenal  downward,  fortunately  for  the  world, 
have  been  willing  to  sacrifice  the  affections  plighted 
to  Themis  on  the  altars  of  the  Muse. 

Brown’s  resolution  at  this  crisis  caused  sincere 
regret  to  his  friends,  which  they  could  not  conceal, 
on  seeing  him  thus  suddenly  turn  from  the  path  of 
honourable  fame  at  the  very  moment  w7hen  he  w  as 
prepared  to  enter  on  it.  His  prospects,  but  lately 
so  brilliant,  seemed  now  overcast  with  a  deep  gloom. 
The  embarrassments  of  his  situation  had  also  a  most 
unfavourable  effect  on  his  own  mind.  Instead  of 
the  careful  discipfne  to  which  it  had  been  lately 
subjected,  it  was  now  left  to  rove  at  large  wherever 

B 


10  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

caprice  should  dictate,  and  waste  itself  on  those 
romantic  reveries  and  speculations  to  which  he  was 
naturally  too  much  addicted.  This  was  the  period 
when  the  French  Revolution  was  in  its  heat,  and 
the  awful  convulsion  experienced  in  one  unhappy 
country  seemed  to  be  felt  in  every  quarter  of  the 
globe ;  men  grew  familiar  with  the  wildest  para¬ 
doxes,  and  the  spirit  of  innovation  menaced  the 
oldest  and  best  established  principles  in  morals  and 
government.  Brown’s  inquisitive  and  speculative 
mind  partook  of  the  prevailing  skepticism.  Some 
of  his  compositions,  and  especially  one  on  the 
Rights  of  Women ,  published  in  1797,  show  to  what 
extravagance  a  benevolent  mind  may  be  led  by  fast¬ 
ening  too  exclusively  on  the  contemplation  of  the 
evils  of  existing  institutions,  and  indulging  in  indef¬ 
inite  dreams  of  perfectibility. 

There  is  no  period  of  existence  when  the  spirit 
of  a  man  is  more  apt  to  be  depressed  than  when  he 
is  about  to  quit  the  safe  and  quiet  harbour  in  which 
he  has  rode  in  safetv  from  childhood,  and  to  launch 
on  the  dark  and  unknown  ocean  where  so  many  a 
gallant  bark  has  gone  down  before  him.  How  much 
must  this  disquietude  be  increased  in  the  case  of  one 
who,  like  Brown,  has  thrown  away  the  very  chart 
and  compass  by  which  he  was  prepared  to  guide 
himself  through  the  doubtful  perils  of  the  voyage ! 
How  heavily  the  gloom  of  despondency  fell  on  his 
spirits  at  this  time  is  attested  by  various  extracts 
from  his  private  correspondence.  “As  for  me,”  he 
says,  in  one  of  his  letters,  “  I  long  ago  discovered 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


11 


that  Nature  had  not  qualified  me  for  an  actor  on  this 
stage.  The  nature  of  my  education  only  added  to 
these  disqualifications,  and  I  experienced  all  those 
deviations  from  the  centre  which  arise  when  all  our 
lessons  are  taken  from  books,  and  the  scholar  makes 
his  own  character  the  comment.  A  happy  destiny, 
indeed,  brought  me  to  the  knowledge  of  two  or  three 
minds  which  Nature  had  fashioned  in  the  same 
mould  with  my  own,  but  these  are  gone.  And,  O 
God  !  enable  me  to  wait  the  moment  when  it  is  thy 
will  that  I  should  follow  them/’  In  another  epistle 
he  remarks,  “I  have  not  been  deficient  in  the  pur¬ 
suit  of  that  necessary  branch  of  knowledge,  the  study 
of  myself.  I  will  not  explain  the  result,  for  have  I 
not  already  sufficiently  endeavoured  to  make  my 
friends  unhappy  by  communications  which,  though 
they  might  easily  be  injurious,  could  not  be  of  any 
possible  advantage  ?  I  really,  dear  W.,  regret  that 
period  when  your  pity  was  first  excited  in  my  fa¬ 
vour.  I  sincerely  lament  that  I  ever  gave  you  rea¬ 
son  to  imagine  that  I  was  not  so  happy  as  a  gay  in¬ 
difference  with  regard  to  the  present,  stubborn  for¬ 
getfulness  with  respect  to  the  uneasy  past,  and  ex¬ 
cursions  into  lightsome  futurity  could  make  me;  for 
what  end,  what  useful  purposes  were  promoted  by 
the  discovery  ?  It  could  not  take  away  from  the 
number  of  the  unhappy,  but  only  add  to  it,  by  ma¬ 
king  those  who  loved  me  participate  in  my  uneasi¬ 
ness,  which  each  participation,  so  far  from  tending 
to  diminish,  would,  in  reality,  increase,  by  adding 
those  regrets,  of  which  I  had  been  the  author  in 


12  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

them,  to  my  own  original  stock.”  It  is  painful  to 
witness  the  struggles  of  a  generous  spirit  endeavour¬ 
ing  to  suppress  the  anguish  thus  involuntarily  esca¬ 
ping  in  the  warmth  of  affectionate  intercourse.  This 
becomes  still  more  striking  in  the  contrast  exhibited 
between  the  assumed  cheerfulness  of  much  of  his 
correspondence  at  this  period  and  the  uniform  mel¬ 
ancholy  tone  of  his  private  journal,  the  genuine  rec¬ 
ord  of  his  emotions. 

Fortunately,  his  taste,  refined  by  intellectual  cul- 
ture,  and  the  elevation  and  spotless  purity  of  his 
moral  principles,  raised  him  above  the  temptations 
of  sensual  indulgence,  in  which  minds  of  weaker 
mould  might  have  sought  a  temporary  relief.  His 
soul  was  steeled  against  the  grosser  seductions  of  ap¬ 
petite.  The  only  avenue  through  which  his  prin¬ 
ciples  could  in  any  way  be  assailed  was  the  under¬ 
standing  ;  and  it  would  appear,  from  some  dark  hints 
in  his  correspondence  at  this  period,  that  the  rash 
idea  of  relieving  himself  from  the  weight  of  earthly 
sorrows  by  some  voluntary  deed  of  violence  had 
more  than  once  flitted  across  his  mind.  It  is  pleas¬ 
ing  to  observe  with  what  beautiful  modesty  and  sim¬ 
plicity  of  character  he  refers  his  abstinence  from 
coarser  indulgences  to  his  constitutional  infirmities, 
and  consequent  disinclination  to  them,  which,  in 
truth,  could  be  only  imputed  to  the  excellence  of  his 
heart  and  his  understanding.  In  one  of  his  letters 
he  remarks,  “that  the  benevolence  of  Nature  ren¬ 
dered  him,  in  a  manner,  an  exile  from  many  of  the 
temptations  that  infest  the  minds  of  ardent  youth. 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


13 


Whatever  his  wishes  might  have  been,  his  benevo¬ 
lent  destiny  had  prevented  him  from  running  into 
the  frivolities  of  youth.”  He  ascribes  to  this  cause 
his  love  of  letters,  and  his  predominant  anxiety  to 
excel  in  whatever  was  a  glorious  subject  of  compe¬ 
tition.  “  Had  he  been  furnished  with  the  nerves  and 
muscles  of  his  comrades,  it  was  very  far  from  impos¬ 
sible  that  he  might  have  relinquished  intellectual 
pleasures.  Nature  had  benevolently  rendered  him 
incapable  of  encountering  such  severe  trials.” 

Brown’s  principal  resources  for  dissipating  the 
melancholy  which  hung  over  him  were  his  inex¬ 
tinguishable  love  of  letters,  and  the  society  of  a  few 
friends,  to  whom  congeniality  of  taste  and  temper  had 
united  him  from  early  years.  In  addition  to  these  re¬ 
sources,  we  may  mention  his  fondness  for  pedestri¬ 
an  rambles,  which  sometimes  were  of  several  weeks’ 
duration.  In  the  course  of  these  excursions,  the  cir¬ 
cle  of  his  acquaintance  and  friends  was  gradually 
enlarged.  In  the  city  of  New- York,  in  particular, 
he  contracted  an  intimacy  with  several  individuals 
of  similar  age  and  kindred  mould  with  himself. 
Among  these,  his  earliest  associate  was  Dr.  E.  H. 
Smith,  a  young  gentleman  of  great  promise  in  the 
medical  profession.  Brown  had  become  known  to 
him  during  the  residence  of  the  latter  as  a  student 
in  Philadelphia.  By  him  our  hero  was  introduced 
to  Mr.  Dunlap,  who  has  survived  to  commemorate 
the  virtues  of  his  friend  in  a  biography  already  no¬ 
ticed,  and  to  Mr.  Johnson,  the  accomplished  author 
of  the  New-York  Law  Reports.  The  society  oi 


14  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

these  friends  had  sufficient  attractions  to  induce  him 
to  repeat  his  visit  to  New- York,  until  at  length,  in 
the  beginning  of  1798,  he  may  be  said  to  have  es¬ 
tablished  his  permanent  residence  there,  passing 
much  of  his  time  under  the  same  roof  with  them. 
His  amiable  manners  and  accomplishments  soon  rec¬ 
ommended  him  to  the  notice  of  other  eminent  indi¬ 
viduals.  He  became  a  member  of  a  literary  soci¬ 
ety,  called  the  Friendly  Club ,  comprehending  names 
which  have  since  shed  a  distinguished  lustre  over  the 
various  walks  of  literature  and  science. 

The  spirits  of  Brown  seemed  to  be  exalted  in  this 
new  atmosphere.  His  sensibilities  found  a  grateful 
exercise  in  the  sympathies  of  friendship,  and  the  pow¬ 
ers  of  his  mind  were  called  into  action  by  collision 
with  others  of  similar  tone  writh  his  own.  His  mem¬ 
ory  was  enriched  with  the  stores  of  various  reading, 
hitherto  conducted  at  random,  with  no  higher  object 
than  temporary  amusement,  or  the  gratification  of 
an  indefinite  curiosity.  He  now  concentrated  his 
attention  on  some  determinate  object,  and  proposed 
to  give  full  scope  to  his  various  talents  and  acquisi¬ 
tions  in  the  career  of  an  author,  as  yet  so  little  trav¬ 
elled  in  our  own  country. 

His  first  publication  was  that  before  noticed,  en¬ 
titled  “  Alcuin,  a  dialogue  on  the  Rights  of  Women.” 
It  exhibits  the  crude  and  fanciful  speculations  of  a 
theorist,  who,  in  his  dreams  of  optimism,  charges 
exclusively  on  human  institutions  the  imperfections 
necessarily  incident  to  human  nature.  The  work, 
with  all  its  ingenuity,  made  little  impression  on  the 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


15 


public  :  it  found  few  purchasers,  and  made,  it  may 
be  presumed,  still  fewer  converts. 

He  soon  after  began  a  romance,  which  he  never 
completed,  from  which  his  biographer  has  given 
copious  extracts.  It  is  conducted  in  the  epistolary 
form,  and,  although  exhibiting  little  of  his  subse¬ 
quent  power  and  passion,  is  recommended  by  a 
graceful  and  easy  manner  of  narration,  more  attract¬ 
ive  than  the  more  elaborate  and  artificial  style  of 
his  latter  novels. 

This  abortive  attempt  was  succeeded,  in  1798, 
by  the  publication  of  Wieland ,  the  first  of  that  re¬ 
markable  series  of  fictions  which  flowed  in  such 
rapid  succession  from  his  pen  in  this  and  the  three 
following  years.  In  this  romance,  the  author,  de¬ 
viating  from  the  usual  track  of  domestic  or  historic 
incident,  proposed  to  delineate  the  powerful  work¬ 
ings  of  passion,  displayed  by  a  mind  constitutionally 
excitable,  under  the  control  of  some  terrible  and 
mysterious  agency.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Pennsyl¬ 
vania.  The  action  takes  place  in  a  family  by  the 
name  of  Wieland,  the  principal  member  of  which 
had  inherited  a  melancholy  and  somewhat  super¬ 
stitious  constitution  of  mind,  which  his  habitual 
reading  and  contemplation  deepened  into  a  calm 
but  steady  fanaticism.  This  temper  is  nourished 
still  farther  by  the  occurrence  of  certain  inexplica¬ 
ble  circumstances  of  ominous  import.  Strange 
voices  are  heard  by  different,  members  of  the  family, 
sometimes  warning  them  of  danger,  sometimes  an¬ 
nouncing  events  seeming  heyond  the  reach  of  hu- 


16  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

man  knowledge.  The  still  and  solemn  hours  of 
night  are  disturbed  by  the  unearthly  summons. 
The  other  actors  of  the  drama  are  thrown  into 
strange  perplexity,  and  an  underplot  of  events  is 
curiously  entangled  by  the  occurrence  of  unaccount¬ 
able  sights  as  well  as  sounds.  By  the  heated  fancy 
of  Wieland  they  are  referred  to  supernatural  agency. 
A  fearful  destiny  seems  to  preside  over  the  scene, 
and  to  carry  the  actors  onward  to  some  awful  ca¬ 
tastrophe.  At  length  the  hour  arrives.  A  solemn, 
mysterious  voice  announces  to  Wieland  that  he  is 
now  called  on  to  testify  his  submission  to  the  Di¬ 
vine  will  by  the  sacrifice  of  his  earthly  affections — 
to  surrender  up  the  affectionate  partner  of  his  bo¬ 
som,  on  whom  he  had  reposed  all  his  hopes  of 
happiness  in  this  life.  He  obeys  the  mandate  of 
Heaven.  The  stormy  conflict  of  passion  into  which 
his  mind  is  thrown,  as  the  fearful  sacrifice  he  is 
about  to  make  calls  up  all  the  tender  remembrances 
of  conjugal  fidelity  and  love,  is  painted  with  fright¬ 
ful  strength  of  colouring.  Although  it  presents,  on 
the  whole,  as  pertinent  an  example  as  we  could 
offer  from  any  of  Brown’s  writings  of  the  peculiar 
power  and  vividness  of  his  conceptions,  the  whole 
scene  is  too  long  for  insertion  here.  We  will  mu¬ 
tilate  it,  however,  by  a  brief  extract,  as  an  illustra¬ 
tion  of  our  author’s  manner,  more  satisfactory  than 
any  criticism  can  be.  Wieland,  after  receiving  the 
fatal  mandate,  is  represented  in  an  apartment  alone 
with  his  wife.  His  courage,  or,  rather,  his  despera¬ 
tion,  fails  him,  and  he  sends  her,  on  some  pretext, 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


17 


from  the  chamber.  An  interval,  during  which  his 
insane  passions  have  time  to  rally,  ensues. 

“  She  returned  with  a  light ;  I  led  the  way  to  the 
chamber  ;  she  looked  round  her  ;  she  lifted  the  cur¬ 
tain  of  the  bed ;  she  saw  nothing.  At  length  she 
fixed  inquiring  eyes  upon  me.  The  light  now  en¬ 
abled  her  to  discover  in  my  visage  what  darkness 
had  hitherto  concealed.  Her  cares  were  now  trans¬ 
ferred  from  my  sister  to  myself,  and  she  said,  in  a 
tremulous  voice,  ‘Wieland!  you  are  not  well;  what 
ails  you?  Can  I  do  nothing  for  you?’  That  accents 
and  looks  so  winning  should  disarm  me  of  my  resolu¬ 
tion  was  to  be  expected.  My  thoughts  were  thrown 
anew  into  anarchy.  I  spread  my  hand  before  my 
eyes  that  I  might  not  see  her,  and  answered  only 
by  groans.  She  took  my  other  hand  between  hers, 
and,  pressing  it  to  her  heart,  spoke  with  that  voice 
which  had  ever  swayed  my  will  and  wafted  away 
sorrow.  ‘  My  friend  !  my  soul’s  friend  !  tell  me  thy 
cause  of  grief.  Do  I  not  merit  to  partake  with 
thee  in  thy  cares  ?  Am  I  not  thy  wife  ?’ 

“  This  was  too  much.  I  broke  from  her  em¬ 
brace,  and  retired  to  a  corner  of  the  room.  In  this 
pause,  courage  wTas  once  more  infused  into  me.  I 
resolved  to  execute  my  duty.  She  followed  me, 
and  renewed  her  passionate  entreaty  to  know  the 
cause  of  my  distress. 

“  I  raised  my  head  and  regarded  her  with  stead¬ 
fast  looks.  I  muttered  something  about  death,  and 
the  injunctions  of  my  duty.  At  these  wrords  she 
shrunk  back,  and  looked  at  me  with  a  new  expres- 

C 


18  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

sion  of  anguish.  After  a  pause,  she  clasped  her 
hands  and  exclaimed, 

“‘O  Wieland  !  Wieland  !  God  grant  that  I  am 
mistaken  ;  but  surely  something  is  wrong.  I  see  it; 
it  is  too  plain  ;  thou  art  undone — lost  to  me  and  to 
thyself.’  At  the  same  time  she  gazed  on  my  fea¬ 
tures  with  intensest  anxiety,  in  hope  that  different 
symptoms  would  take  place.  I  replied  with  vehe¬ 
mence,  ‘  Undone  !  No  ;  my  duty  is  known,  and  I 
thank  my  God  that  my  cowardice  is  now  vanquish¬ 
ed,  and  I  have  power  to  fulfil  it.  Catharine  !  I  pity 
the  weakness  of  nature ;  I  pity  thee,  but  must  not 
spare.  Thy  life  is  claimed  from  my  hands  :  thou 
must  die !’ 

“Fear  was  now  added  to  her  grief.  ‘What 
mean  you  1  Why  talk  you  of  death  ?  Bethink 
yourself,  Wieland  ;  bethink  yourself,  and  this  fit  will 
pass.  O!  why  came  I  hither  1  Why  did  you  drag 
me  hither  V 

‘“I  brought  thee  hither  to  fulfil  a  divine  command. 
I  am  appointed  thy  destroyer,  and  destroy  thee  I 
must.’  Saying  this,  I  seized  her  wrists.  She  shriek¬ 
ed  aloud,  and  endeavoured  to  free  herself  from  my 
grasp,  but  her  efforts  were  vain. 

“  ‘  Surely,  surely,  Wieland,  thou  dost  not  mean  it. 
Am  I  not  thy  wife  1  and  wouldst  thou  kill  me  ? 
Thou  wilt  not;  and  yet — I  see — thou  art  Wieland 
no  longer  !  A  fury,  resistless  and  horrible,  possesses 
thee  :  spare  me — spare — help — help — ’ 

“  Till  her  breath  was  stopped  she  shrieked  for 
help — for  mercy.  When  she  could  speak  no  longer. 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


19 


her  gestures,  her  looks  appealed  to  my  compassion. 
My  accursed  hand  was  irresolute  and  tremulous. 
I  meant  thy  death  to  be  sudden,  thy  struggles  to  be 
brief.  Alas  !  my  heart  was  infirm,  my  resolves  mu¬ 
table.  Thrice  I  slackened  my  grasp,  and  life  kept 
its  hold,  though  in  the  midst  of  pangs.  Her  eye¬ 
balls  started  from  their  sockets.  Grimness  and  dis¬ 
tortion  took  place  of  all  that  used  to  bewitch  me 
into  transport  and  subdue  me  into  reverence. 

“  I  was  commissioned  to  kill  thee,  but  not  to  tor¬ 
ment  thee  with  the  foresight  of  thy  death ;  not  to 
multiply  thy  fears  and  prolong  thy  agonies.  Hag¬ 
gard,  and  pale,  and  lifeless,  at  length  thou  ceasedst 
to  contend  with  thy  destiny. 

“  This  was  a  moment  of  triumph.  Thus  had  I 
successfully  subdued  the  stubbornness  of  human 
passions  ;  the  victim  which  had  been  demanded 
was  given ;  the  deed  was  done  past  recall. 

“  I  lifted  the  corpse  in  my  arms,  and  laid  it  on 
the  bed.  I  gazed  upon  it  with  delight.  Such  was 
the  elation  of  my  thoughts  that  I  even  broke  into 
laughter.  I  clapped  my  hands,  and  exclaimed,  ‘  It 
is  done  !  My  sacred  duty  is  fulfilled !  To  that  1 
have  sacrified,  O  my  God  !  thy  last  and  best  gift, 
my  wife !’ 

“For  a  while  I  thus  soared  above  frailty.  I 
imagined  I  had  set  myself  forever  beyond  the  reach 
of  selfishness,  but  my  imaginations  were  false.  This 
rapture  quickly  subsided.  I  looked  again  at  my 
wife.  My  joyous  ebullitions  vanished,  and  I  asked 
myself  who  it  was  whom  I  saw.  Methought  it 


20  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

could  not  be  Catharine.  It  could  not  be  the  wom¬ 
an  who  had  lodged  for  years  in  my  heart;  who  had 
slept  nightly  in  my  bosom  ;  who  had  borne  in  her 
womb,  who  had  fostered  at  her  breast,  the  beings 
who  called  me  father ;  whom  I  had  watched  with 
delight,  and  cherished  with  a  fondness  ever  new 
and  perpetually  growing  :  it  could  not  be  the 
same. 

“  Where  was  her  bloom  ?  These  deadly  and 
blood-suffused  orbs  but  ill  resemble  the  azure  and 
ecstatic  tenderness  of  her  eyes.  The  lucid  stream 
that  meandered  over  that  bosom,  the  glow  of  love 
that  was  wont  to  sit  upon  that  cheek,  are  much 
unlike  these  livid  stains  and  this  hideous  deformity. 
Alas  !  these  were  the  traces  of  agony  :  the  gripe  of 
the  assassin  had  been  here  ! 

“  I  will  not  dwell  upon  my  lapse  into  desperate 
and  outrageous  sorrow.  The  breath  of  Heaven  that 
sustained  me  was  withdrawn,  and  I  sunk  into  mere 
man .  I  leaped  from  the  floor;  I  dashed  my  head 
against  the  wall  ;  I  uttered  screams  of  horror  ;  I 
panted  after  torment  and  pain.  Eternal  fire  and 
the  bickerings  of  hell,  compared  with  what  I  felt, 
were  music  and  a  bed  of  roses. 

“  I  thank  my  God  that  this  degeneracy  was  tran¬ 
sient — that  he  deigned  once  more  to  raise  me  aloft. 
I  thought  upon  what  I  had  done  as  a  sacrifice  to 
duty,  and  was  calm.  My  wife  was  dead  ;  but  I  re¬ 
flected  that,  though  this  source  of  human  consola¬ 
tion  was  closed,  yet  others  were  still  open.  If  the 
transports  of  a  husband  were  no  more,  the  feelings 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


21 


of  a  father  had  still  scope  for  exercise.  When  re¬ 
membrance  of  their  mother  should  excite  too  keen 
a  pang,  I  would  look  upon  them  and  be  comforted. 

“  While  I  revolved  these  ideas,  new  warmth 
flowed  in  upon  my  heart.  I  was  wrong.  These 
feelings  were  the  growth  of  selfishness.  Of  this  I 
was  not  aware ;  and,  to  dispel  the  mist  that  ob¬ 
scured  my  perceptions,  a  new  effulgence  and  a  new 
mandate  were  necessary. 

“  From  these  thoughts  I  was  recalled  by  a  ray 
that  was  shot  into  the  room.  A  voice  spake  like 
that  which  I  had  before  heard,  ‘  Thou  hast  done 
well ;  but  all  is  not  done — the  sacrifice  is  incom¬ 
plete — thy  children  must  be  offered  —  they  must 
perish  with  their  mother !  ’  ” 

This,  too,  is  accomplished  by  the  same  remorse¬ 
less  arm,  although  the  author  has  judiciously  re¬ 
frained  from  attempting  to  prolong  the  note  of 
feeling,  struck  with  so  powerful  a  hand,  by  the  re¬ 
cital  of  the  particulars.  The  wretched  fanatic  is 
brought  to  trial  for  the  murder,  but  is  acquitted  on 
the  ground  of  insanity.  The  illusion  which  has 
bewildered  him  at  length  breaks  on  his  understand¬ 
ing  in  its  whole  truth.  He  cannot  sustain  the 
shock,  and  the  tragic  tale  closes  with  the  suicide  of 
the  victim  of  superstition  and  imposture.  The  key 
to  the  whole  of  this  mysterious  agency  which  con¬ 
trols  the  circumstances  of  the  story  is — ventrilo¬ 
quism  !  ventriloquism  exerted  for  the  very  purpose 
by  a  human  fiend,  from  no  motives  of  revenge  or 
hatred,  but  pure  diabolical  malice,  or,  as  he  would 


22  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

make  us  believe,  and  the  author  seems  willing  to 
endorse  this  absurd  version  of  it,  as  a  mere  practi¬ 
cal  joke!  The  reader,  who  has  been  gorged  with 
this  feast  of  horrors,  is  tempted  to  throw  away  the 
book  in  disgust  at  finding  himself  the  dupe  of  such 
paltry  jugglery ;  which,  whatever  sense  be  given  to 
the  term  ventriloquism,  is  altogether  incompetent  to 
the  various  phenomena  of  sight  and  sound  with 
which  the  story  is  so  plentifully  seasoned.  We  can 
feel  the  force  of  Dryden’s  imprecation,  when  he 
cursed  the  inventors  of  those  fifth  acts  which  are 
bound  to  unravel  all  the  fine  mesh  of  impossibilities 
which  the  author’s  wits  had  been  so  busy  entan¬ 
gling  in  the  four  preceding. 

The  explication  of  the  mysteries  of  Wieland 
naturally  suggests  the  question  how  far  an  author 
is  bound  to  explain  the  super  naturalities ,  if  we  may 
so  call  them,  of  his  fictions  ;  and  whether  it  is  not 
better,  on  the  whole,  to  trust  to  the  willing  super¬ 
stition  and  credulity  of  the  reader  (of  which  there  is 
perhaps  store  enough  in  almost  every  bosom,  at  the 
present  enlightened  day  even,  for  poetical  purposes) 
than  to  attempt  a  solution  on  purely  natural  or  me¬ 
chanical  principles.  It  was  thought  no  harm  for  the 
ancients  to  bring  the  use  of  machinery  into  their 
epics,  and  a  similar  freedom  was  conceded  to  the 
old  English  dramatists,  whose  ghosts  and  witches 
were  placed  in  the  much  more  perilous  predicament 
of  being  subjected  to  the  scrutiny  of  the  spectator, 

whose  senses  are  not  near  so  likely  to  be  duped  as 

\ 

the  sensitive  and  excited  imagination  of  the  reader 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


23 


in  his  solitary  chamber.  It  must  be  admitted,  how¬ 
ever,  that  the  public  of  those  days,  when  the 

“  Undoubting  mind 

Believed  the  magic  wonders  that  were  sung,” 

were  admirably  seasoned  for  the  action  of  super¬ 
stition  in  all  forms,  and  furnished,  therefore,  a  most 
enviable  audience  for  the  melo-dramatic  artist, 
whether  dramatist  or  romance-writer.  But  all  this 
is  changed.  No  witches  ride  the  air  nowadays, 
and  fairies  no  longer  “  dance  their  rounds  by  the 
pale  moonlight,”  as  the  worthy  Bishop  Corbet,  in¬ 
deed,  lamented  a  century  and  a  half  ago. 

Still  it  may  be  allowed,  perhaps,  if  the  scene  is  laid 
in  some  remote  age  or  country,  to  borrow  the  ancient 
superstitions  of  the  place,  and  incorporate  them  into, 
or,  at  least,  colour  the  story  with  them,  without  shock¬ 
ing  the  wellbred  prejudices  of  the  modern  reader. 
Sir  Walter  Scott  has  done  this  with  good  effect  in 
more  than  one  of  his  romances,  as  every  one  will 
readily  call  to  mind.  A  fine  example  occurs  in  the 
Boden  Glass  apparition  in  Waverley,  which  the 
great  novelist,  far  from  attempting  to  explain  on 
any  philosophical  principles,  or  even  by  an  intima¬ 
tion  of  its  being  the  mere  creation  of  a  feverish 
imagination,  has  left  as  he  found  it,  trusting  that 
the  reader’s  poetic  feeling  will  readily  accommo¬ 
date  itself  to  the  popular  superstitions  of  the  coun¬ 
try  he  is  depicting.  This  reserve  on  his  part,  in¬ 
deed,  arising  from  a  truly  poetic  view  of  the  subject, 
and  an  honest  reliance  on  a  similar  spirit  in  his 
reader,  has  laid  him  open,  with  some  matter-of-fact 


24  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

people,  to  the  imputation  of  not  being  wholly  un¬ 
touched  himself  by  the  national  superstitions.  Yet 
how  much  would  the  whole  scene  have  lost  in  its 
permanent  effect  if  the  author  had  attempted  an 
explanation  of  the  apparition  on  the  ground  of  an 
optical  illusion  not  infrequent  among  the  mountain 
mists  of  the  Highlands,  or  any  other  of  the  ingenious 
solutions  so  readily  at  the  command  of  the  thorough¬ 
bred  story-teller ! 

It  must  be  acknowledged,  however,  that  this  way 
of  solving  the  riddles  of  romance  would  hardly  be 
admissible  in  a  story  drawn  from  familiar  scenes 
and  situations  in  modern  life,  and  especially  in  our 
own  country.  The  lights  of  education  are  flung 
too  bright  and  broad  over  the  land  to  allow  any 
lurking-hole  for  the  shadows  of  a  twilight  age.  So 
much  the  worse  for  the  poet  and  the  novelist. 
Their  province  must  now  be  confined  to  poor  hu¬ 
man  nature,  without  meddling  with  the  “  Gorgons 
and  chimeras  dire”  which  floated  through  the  be¬ 
wildered  brains  of  our  forefathers,  at  least  on  the 
other  side  of  the  water.  At  any  rate,  if  a  writer, 
in  this  broad  sunshine,  ventures  on  any  sort  of  clia- 

7  j 

blerie ,  lie  is  forced  to  explain  it  by  all  the  thousand 
contrivances  of  trapdoors,  secret  passages,  waxen 
images,  and  other  makeshifts  from  the  property- 
room  of  Mrs.  Radcliffe  and  Company. 

Brown,  indeed,  has  resorted  to  a  somewhat  higher 
mode  of  elucidating  his  mysteries  by  a  remarkable 
phenomenon  of  our  nature.  But  the  misfortune  of 
all  these  attempts  to  account  for  the  marvels  of  the 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


25 


story  by  natural  or  mechanical  causes  is,  that  they 
are  very  seldom  satisfactory,  or  competent  to  their 
object.  This  is  eminently  the  case  with  the  ven¬ 
triloquism  in  Wieland.  Even  where  they  are  com¬ 
petent,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  reader,  who 
has  suffered  his  credulous  fancy  to  be  entranced  by 
the  spell  of  the  magician,  will  be  gratified  to  learn, 
at  the  end,  by  what  cheap  mechanical  contrivance 
he  has  been  duped.  However  this  may  be,  it  is 
certain  that  a  very  unfavourable  effect,  in  another 
respect,  is  produced  on  his  mind,  after  he  is  made 
acquainted  with  the  nature  of  the  secret  spring  by 
which  the  machinery  is  played,  more  especially 
when  one  leading  circumstance,  like  ventriloquism 
in  Wieland,  is  made  the  master-key,  as  it  were,  by 
which  all  the  mysteries  are  to  be  unlocked  and 
opened  at  once.  With  this  explanation  at  hand,  it 
is  extremely  difficult  to  rise  to  that  sensation  of 
mysterious  awe  and  apprehension  on  which  so 
much  of  the  sublimity  and  general  effect  of  the  nar¬ 
rative  necessarily  depends.  Instead  of  such  feel¬ 
ings,  the  only  ones  which  can  enable  us  to  do  full 
justice  to  the  author’s  conceptions,  we  sometimes, 
on  the  contrary,  may  detect  a  smile  lurking  in  the 
corner  of  the  mouth  as  we  peruse  scenes  of  posi¬ 
tive  power,  from  the  contrast  obviously  suggested 
of  the  impotence  of  the  apparatus  and  the  porten¬ 
tous  character  of  the  results.  The  critic,  therefore, 
possessed  of  the  real  key  to  the  mysteries  of  the 
story,  if  he  would  do  justice  to  his  author’s  merits, 
must  divest  himself,  as  it  were,  of  his  previous 

D 


26  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES 

knowledge,  by  fastening  his  attention  on  the  re¬ 
sults,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  insignificant  means  by 
which  they  are  achieved.  He  will  not  always  find 
this  an  easy  matter. 

But  to  return  from  this  rambling  digression :  in 
the  following  year,  1799,  Brown  published  his  sec¬ 
ond  novel,  entitled  Ormond.  The  story  presents 
few  of  the  deeply  agitating  scenes  and  powerful 
bursts  of  passion  which  distinguish  the  first.  It  is 
designed  to  exhibit  a  model  of  surpassing  excellence 
in  a  female  rising  superior  to  all  the  shocks  of  ad¬ 
versity  and  the  more  perilous  blandishments  of  se¬ 
duction,  and  who,  as  the  scene  grows  darker  and 
darker  around  her,  seems  to  illumine  the  whole 
with  the  radiance  of  her  celestial  virtues.  The 
reader  is  reminded  of  the  “  patient  Griselda,”  so 
delicately  portrayed  by  the  pencils  of  Boccaccio 
and  Chaucer.  It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that 
the  contemplation  of  such  a  character  in  the  abstract 
is  more  imposing  than  the  minute  details  by  which 
we  attain  to  the  knowledge  of  it;  and  although 
there  is  nothing,  wre  are  told,  which  the  gods  look¬ 
ed  down  upon  with  more  satisfaction  than  a  brave 
mind  struggling  with  the  storms  of  adversity,  yet, 
when  these  come  in  the  guise  of  poverty  and  all  the 
train  of  teasing  annoyances  in  domestic  life,  the  tale,v 
if  long  protracted,  too  often  produces  a  sensation  of 
weariness  scarcely  to  be  compensated  by  the  moral 
grandeur  of  the  spectacle. 

The  appearance  of  these  two  novels  constitutes 
an  epoch  in  the  ornamental  literature  of  America. 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


27 


They  are  the  first  decidedly  successful  attempts  in 
the  walk  of  romantic  fiction.  They  are  still  farther 
remarkable  as  illustrating  the  character  and  state 
of  society  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  instead  of 
resorting  to  the  exhausted  springs  of  European  in¬ 
vention.  These  circumstances,  as  well  as  the  un¬ 
common  powers  they  displayed  both  of  conception 
and  execution,  recommended  them  to  the  notice 
of  the  literary  world,  although  their  philosophical 
method  of  dissecting  passion  and  analyzing  motives 
of  action  placed  them  somewhat  beyond  the  reach 
of  vulgar  popularity.  Brown  was  sensible  of  the 
favourable  impression  which  he  had  made,  and  men¬ 
tions  it  in  one  of  his  epistles  to  his  brother  with  his 
usual  unaffected  modesty  :  “I  add  somewhat,  though 
not  so  much  as  I  might  if  I  were  so  inclined,  to  the 
number  of  my  friends.  I  find  to  be  the  writer  of 
Wieland  and  Ormond  is  a  greater  recommendation 
than  I  ever  imagined  it  would  be.” 

In  the  course  of  the  same  year,  the  quiet  tenour 
of  his  life  was  interrupted  by  the  visitation  of  that 
fearful  pestilence,  the  yellow  fever,  which  had  for 
several  successive  years  made  its  appearance  in  the 
city  of  New-York,  but  which  in  1798  fell  upon  it 
with  a  violence  similar  to  that  with  which  it  had 
desolated  Philadelphia  in  1793.  Brown  had  taken 
the  precaution  of  withdrawing  from  the  latter  city, 
where  he  then  resided,  on  its  first  appearance  there. 
He  prolonged  his  stay  in  New-York,  however,  re¬ 
lying  on  the  healthiness  of  the  quarter  of  the  town 
where  he  lived,  and  the  habitual  abstemiousness  of 


28  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

his  diet.  His  friend  Smith  was  necessarily  detain¬ 
ed  there  by  the  duties  of  his  profession  ;  and  Brown, 
in  answer  to  the  reiterated  importunities  of  his  ab¬ 
sent  relatives  to  withdraw  from  the  infected  city, 
refused  to  do  so,  on  the  ground  that  his  personal 
services  might  be  required  by  the  friends  who  re¬ 
mained  in  it ;  a  disinterestedness  well  meriting  the 
strength  of  attachment  which  he  excited  in  the 
bosom  of  his  companions. 

Unhappily,  Brown  was  right  in  his  prognostics, 
and  his  services  were  too  soon  required  in  behalf 
of  his  friend  Dr.  Smith,  who  fell  a  victim  to  his 
own  benevolence,  having  caught  the  fatal  malady 
from  an  Italian  gentleman,  a  stranger  in  the  city, 
whom  he  received,  when  infected  with  the  disease, 
into  his  house,  relinquishing  to  him  his  own  apart¬ 
ment.  Brown  had  the  melancholy  satisfaction  of 
performing  the  last  sad  offices  of  affection  to  his 
dying  friend.  He  himself  soon  became  affected 
with  the  same  disorder  ;  and  it  was  not  till  after  a 
severe  illness  that  he  so  far  recovered  as  to  be  able 
to  transfer  his  residence  to  Perth  Amboy,  the  abode 
of  Mr.  Dunlap,  where  a  pure  and  invigorating  at¬ 
mosphere,  aided  by  the  kind  attentions  of  his  host, 
gradually  restored  him  to  a  sufficient  degree  of 
health  and  spirits  for  the  prosecution  of  his  literary 
labours. 

The  spectacle  he  had  witnessed  made  too  deep 
an  impression  on  him  to  be  readily  effaced,  and  he 
resolved  to  transfer  his  own  conceptions  of  it,  while 
yet  fresh,  to  the  page  or  fiction,  or,  as  it  might 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


29 


rather  be  called,  of  history,  for  the  purpose,  as  he 
intimates  in  his  preface,  of  imparting  to  others  some 
of  the  fruits  of  the  melancholy  lesson  he  had  him¬ 
self  experienced.  Such  was  the  origin  of  his  next 
novel,  Arthur  Mervyn  ;  or,  Memoirs  of  the  Year 
1793.  This  was  the  fatal  year  of  the  yellow  fever 
in  Philadelphia.  The  action  of  the  story  is  chiefly 
confined  to  that  city,  but  seems  to  be  prepared  with 
little  contrivance,  on  no  regular  or  systematic  plan, 
consisting  simply  of  a  succession  of  incidents,  hav¬ 
ing  little  cohesion  except  in  reference  to  the  hero, 
but  affording  situations  of  great  interest,  and  fright¬ 
ful  fidelity  of  colouring.  The  pestilence  wasting  a 
thriving  and  populous  city  has  furnished  a  topic  for 
more  than  one  great  master.  It  will  be  remember¬ 
ed  as  the  terror  of  every  schoolboy  in  the  pages 
of  Thucydides;  it  forms  the  gloomy  portal  to  the 
light  and  airy  fictions  of  Boccaccio  ;  and  it  has  fur¬ 
nished  a  subject  for  the  graphic  pencil  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish  novelist  He  Foe,  the  only  one  of  the  three  who 
never  witnessed  the  horrors  which  he  paints,  but 
whose  fictions  wear  an  aspect  of  reality  which  his¬ 
tory  can  rarely  reach. 

Brown  has  succeeded  in  giving  the  same  terrible 
distinctness  to  his  impressions  by  means  of  indi¬ 
vidual  portraiture.  He  has,  however,  not  confined 
himself  to  this,  but,  by  a  var’ety  of  touches,  lays 
open  to  our  view  the  whole  interior  of  the  city  of 
the  plague.  Instead  of  expatiating  on  the  loathsome 
symptoms  and  physical  ravages  of  the  disease,  he 
selects  the  most  striking  moral  circumstances  which 


30  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

attend  it ;  he  dwells  on  the  withering  sensation 
that  falls  so  heavily  on  the  heart  in  the  streets  of 
the  once  busy  and  crowded  city,  now  deserted  and 
silent,  save  only  where  the  wheels  of  the  melan¬ 
choly  hearse  are  heard  to  rumble  along  the  pave¬ 
ment.  Our  author  not  unfrequently  succeeds  in 
conveying  more  to  the  heart  by  the  skilful  selection 
of  a  single  circumstance  than  would  have  flowed 
from  a  multitude  of  petty  details.  It  is  the  art  of 
the  great  masters  of  poetry  and  painting. 

The  same  year  in  which  Brown  produced  the 
first  part  of  “Arthur  Mervyn,”  he  entered  on  the 
publication  of  a  periodical  entitled  The  Monthly 
Magazine  and  American  Review ,  a  work  that,  du¬ 
ring  its  brief  existence,  which  terminated  in  the 
following  year,  afforded  abundant  evidence  of  its 
editor’s  versatility  of  talent  and  the  ample  range  of 
his  literary  acquisitions.  Our  hero  was  now  fairly 
in  the  traces  of  authorship.  He  looked  to  it  as  his 
permanent  vocation  ;  and  the  indefatigable  diligence 
with  which  he  devoted  himself  to  it  may  at  least 
serve  to  show  that  he  did  not  shrink  from  his  pro¬ 
fessional  engagements  from  any  lack  of  industry  or 
enterprise. 

The  publication  of  “Arthur  Mervyn”  was  suc¬ 
ceeded  not  long  after  by  that  of  Edgar  Huntly  ; 
or ,  the  Adventures  of  a  Sleepwalker,  a  romance  pre¬ 
senting  a  greater  variety  of  wild  and  picturesque 
adventure,  with  more  copious  delineations  of  natu¬ 
ral  scenery,  than  is  to  be  found  in  his  other  fictions; 
circumstances,  no  doubt,  possessing  more  attractions 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


31 


for  the  mass  of  readers  than  the  peculiarities  of  his 
other  novels.  Indeed,  the  author  has  succeeded 
perfectly  in  constantly  stimulating  the  curiosity  by  a 
succession  of  as  original  incidents,  perils,  and  hair¬ 
breadth  escapes  as  ever  flitted  across  a  poet’s  fancy. 
It  is  no  small  triumph  of  the  art  to  be  able  to  main¬ 
tain  the  curiosity  of  the  reader  unflagging  through 
a  succession  of  incidents,  which,  far  from  being 
sustained  by  one  predominant  passion,  and  forming 
parts  of  one  whole,  rely  each  for  its  interest  on  its 
own  independent  merits. 

The  story  is  laid  in  the  western  part  of  Pennsyl¬ 
vania,  where  the  author  has  diversified  his  descrip¬ 
tions  of  a  simple  and  almost  primitive  state  of  society 
with  uncommonly  animated  sketches  of  rural  sce¬ 
nery.  It  is  worth  observing  how  the  sombre  com¬ 
plexion  of  Brown’s  imagination,  which  so  deeply 
tinges  his  moral  portraiture,  sheds  its  gloom  over 
his  pictures  of  material  nature,  raising  the  land¬ 
scape  into  all  the  severe  and  savage  sublimity  of  a 
Salvator  Rosa.  The  somnambulism  of  this  novel, 
which,  like  the  ventriloquism  of  “  Wieland,”  is  the 
moving  principle  of  all  the  machinery,  has  this  ad¬ 
vantage  over  the  latter,  that  it  does  not  necessarily 
impair  the  effect  by  perpetually  suggesting  a  solu¬ 
tion  of  mysteries,  and  thus  dispelling  the  illusion 
on  whose  existence  the  effect  of  the  whole  story 
mainly  depends.  The  adventures,  indeed,  built 
upon  it  are  not  the  most  probable  in  the  world ; 
but,  waving  this — we  shall  be  well  rewarded  for 
such  concession — there  is  no  farther  difficulty. 


32  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

The  extract  already  cited  by  us  from  the  first  of 
our  author’s  novels  has  furnished  the  reader  with 
an  illustration  of  his  power  in  displaying  the  con¬ 
flict  of  passion  under  high  moral  excitement.  We 
will  now  venture  another  quotation  from  the  work 
before  us,  in  order  to  exhibit  more  fully  his  talent 
for  the  description  of  external  objects. 

Edgar  Huntly,  the  hero  of  the  story,  is  repre¬ 
sented  in  one  of  the  wild  mountain  fastnesses  of 
Norwalk,  a  district  in  the  western  part  of  Penn¬ 
sylvania.  He  is  on  the  brink  of  a  ravine,  from 
which  the  only  avenue  lies  over  the  body  of  a 
tree  thrown  across  the  chasm,  through  whose  dark 
depths  below  a  rushing  torrent  is  heard  to  pour  its 
waters. 

“  While  occupied  with  these  reflections,  my  eyes 
were  fixed  upon  the  opposite  steeps.  The  tops  of 
the  trees,  waving  to  and  fro  in  the  wildest  commo¬ 
tion,  and  their  trunks  occasionally  bending  to  the 
blast,  which,  in  these  lofty  regions,  blew  with  a 
violence  unknown  in  the  tracts  below,  exhibited  an 
awful  spectacle.  At  length  my  attention  was  at¬ 
tracted  by  the  trunk  which  lay  across  the  gulf,  and 
which  I  had  converted  into  a  bridge.  I  perceived 
that  it  had  already  swerved  somewhat  from  its 
original  position  ;  that  every  blast  broke  or  loosened 
some  of  the  fibres  by  which  its  roots  were  connect¬ 
ed  with  the  opposite  bank;  and  that,  if  the  storm 
did  not  speedily  abate,  there  was  imminent  danger 
of  its  being  torn  from  the  rock  and  precipitated  into 
the  chasm.  Thus  my  retreat  would  be  cut  off,  and 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


33 


the  evils  from  which  I  was  endeavouring  to  rescue 
another  would  be  experienced  by  myself. 

“  I  believed  my  destiny  to  hang  upon  the  expe¬ 
dition  with  which  I  should  recross  this  gulf.  The 
moments  that  were  spent  in  these  deliberations 
were  critical,  and  I  shuddered  to  observe  that  the 
trunk  was  held  in  its  place  by  one  or  two  fibres, 
which  were  already  stretched  almost  to  breaking. 

“To  pass  along  the  trunk,  rendered  slippery  by 
the  wet,  and  unsteadfast  by  the  wind,  was  eminent¬ 
ly  dangerous.  T o  maintain  my  hold  in  passing,  in 
defiance  of  the  whirlwind,  required  the  most  vigor¬ 
ous  exertions.  For  this  end,  it  was  necessary  to 
discommode  myself  of  my  cloak,  and  of  the  volume 
which  I  carried  in  the  pocket  of  my  coat. 

“  Just  as  I  had  disposed  of  these  encumbrances, 
and  had  risen  from  my  seat,  my  attention  was  again 
called  to  the  opposite  steep  by  the  most  unwelcome 
object  that  at  this  time  could  possibly  occur.  Some¬ 
thing  was  perceived  moving  among  the  bushes  and 
rocks,  which,  for  a  time,  I  hoped  was  nothing  more 
than  a  racoon  or  opossum,  but  which  presently 
appeared  to  be  a  panther.  His  gray  coat,  extended 
claws,  fiery  eyes,  and  a  cry  which  he  at  that  mo¬ 
ment  uttered,  and  which,  by  its  resemblance  to  the 
human  voice,  is  peculiarly  terrific,  denoted  him  to 
be  the  most  ferocious  and  untameable  of  that  de¬ 
tested  race.  The  industry  of  our  hunters  has  nearly 
banished  animals  of  prey  from  these  precincts* 
The  fastnesses  of  Norwalk,  however,  could  not  but 
afford  refuge  to  some  of  them.  Of  late  I  had  met 

E 


34  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

them  so  rarely  that  my  fears  were  seldom  alive, 
and  I  trod  without  caution  the  ruggedest  and  most 
solitary  haunts.  Still,  however,  I  had  seldom  been 
unfurnished  in  my  rambles  with  the  means  of  de¬ 
fence. 

“  The  unfrequency  with  which  I  had  lately  en¬ 
countered  this  foey  and  the  encumbrance  of  provis¬ 
ion,  made  me  neglect,  on  this  occasion,  to  bring 
with  me  my  usual  arms.  The  beast  that  was  now 
before  me,  when  stimulated  by  hunger,  was  accus¬ 
tomed  to  assail  whatever  could  provide  him  with  a 
banquet  of  blood.  He  would  set  upon  the  man  and 
the  deer  with  equal  and  irresistible  ferocity.  His 
sagacity  was  equal  to  his  strength,  and  he  seemed 
able  to  discover  when  his  antagonist  was  armed 
and  prepared  for  defence. 

“  My  past  experience  enabled  me  to  estimate  the 
full  extent  of  my  danger.  He  sat  on  the  browr  of 
the  steep,  eyeing  the  bridge,  and  apparently  delib¬ 
erating  whether  he  should  cross  it.  It  was  proba¬ 
ble  that  he  had  scented  my  footsteps  thus  far,  and, 
should  he  pass  over,  his  vigilance  could  scarcely  fail 
of  detecting  my  asylum. 

“  Should  he  retain  his  present  station,  my  danger 
was  scarcely  lessened.  To  pass  over  in  the  face 
of  a  famished  tiger  was  only  to  rush  upon  my  fate. 
The  falling  of  the  trunk,  which  had  lately  been  so 
anxiously  deprecated,  was  now,  with  no  less  solici¬ 
tude,  desired.  Every  new  gust,  I  hoped,  would  tear 
asunder  its  remaining  bands,  and,  by  cutting  off  all 
communication  between  the  opposite  steeps,  place 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


35 


rne  in  security.  My  hopes,  however,  were  destined 
to  be  frustrated.  The  fibres  of  the  prostrate  tree 
were  obstinately  tenacious  of  their  hold,  and  pres¬ 
ently  the  animal  scrambled  down  the  rock  and  pro¬ 
ceeded  to  cross  it. 

“  Of  all  kinds  of  death,  that  which  now  menaced 
me  was  the  most  abhorred.  To  die  by  disease,  or 
by  the  hand  of  a  fellow-creature,  was  propitious 
and  lenient  in  comparison  with  being  rent  to  pieces 
by  the  fangs  of  this  savage.  To  perish  in  this  ob¬ 
scure  retreat  by  means  so  impervious  to  the  anxious 
curiosity  of  my  friends,  to  lose  my  portion  of  exist¬ 
ence  by  so  untoward  and  ignoble  a  destiny,  was 
insupportable.  I  bitterly  deplored  my  rashness  in 
coming  hither  unprovided  for  an  encounter  like 
this. 

“  The  evil  of  my  present  circumstances  consisted 
chiefly  in  suspense.  My  death  was  unavoidable, 
but  my  imagination  had  leisure  to  torment  itself  by 
anticipations.  One  foot  of  the  savage  was  slowly 
and  cautiously  moved  after  the  other.  He  struck 
his  claws  so  deeply  into  the  bark  that  they  were 
with  difficulty  withdrawn.  At  length  he  leaped 
upon  the  ground.  We  wTere  now  separated  by  an 
interval  of  scarcely  eight,  feet.  To  leave  the  spot 
where  I  crouched  was  impossible.  Behind  and  be¬ 
side  me  the  cliff  rose  perpendicularly,  and  before  me 
was  this  grim  and  terrible  visage.  I  shrunk  still 
closer  to  the  ground,  and  closed  my  eyes. 

“  From  this  pause  of  horror  I  was  aroused  by  the 
noise  occasioned  by  a  second  spring  of  the  animal. 


36  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

He  leaped  into  the  pit,  in  which  I  had  so  deeply 
regretted  that  I  had  not  taken  refuge,  and  disap¬ 
peared.  My  rescue  was  so  sudden,  and  so  much 
beyond  my  belief  or  my  hope,  that  I  doubted  for  a 
moment  whether  my  senses  did  not  deceive  me. 
This  opportunity  of  escape  was  not  to  be  neglected. 
I  left  my  place  and  scrambled  over  the  trunk  with 
a  precipitation  which  had  like  to  have  proved  fatal. 
The  tree  groaned  and  shook  under  me,  the  wind 
blew  with  unexampled  violence,  and  I  had  scarcely 
reached  the  opposite  steep  when  the  roots  were 
severed  from  the  rock,  and  the  whole  fell  thunder¬ 
ing  to  the  bottom  of  the  chasm. 

“  My  trepidations  were  not  speedily  quieted.  I 
looked  back  with  wonder  on  my  hair-breadth  es¬ 
cape,  and  on  that  singular  concurrence  of  events 
which  had  placed  me  in  so  short  a  period  in  abso¬ 
lute  security.  Had  the  trunk  fallen  a  moment  ear¬ 
lier,  I  should  have  been  imprisoned  on  the  hill  or 
thrown  headlong.  Had  its  fall  been  delayed  an¬ 
other  moment,  I  should  have  been  pursued  ;  for  the 
beast  now  issued  from  his  den,  and  testified  his  sur¬ 
prise  and  disappointment  by  tokens  the  sight  of 
which  made  my  blood  run  cold. 

“  He  saw  me,  and  hastened  to  the  verge  of  the 
chasm.  He  squatted  on  his  hind  legs,  and  assumed 
the  attitude  of  one  preparing  to  leap.  My  conster¬ 
nation  was  excited  afresh  by  these  appearances.  It 
seemed  at  first  as  if  the  rift  was  too  wide  for  any 
power  of  muscles  to  carry  him  in  safety  over  ;  but 
T  knew  the  unparalleled  agility  of  this  animal,  and 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


37 


that  his  experience  had  made  him  a  better  judge  of 
the  practicability  of  this  exploit  than  I  was. 

“  Still  there  was  hope  that  he  would  relinquish 
this  design  as  desperate.  This  hope  was  quickly 
at  an  end.  He  sprung,  and  his  fore  legs  touched 
the  verge  of  the  rock  on  which  I  stood.  In  spite 
of  vehement  exertions,  however,  the  surface  was  too 
smooth  and  too  hard  to  allow  him  to  make  good 
his  hold.  He  fell,  and  a  piercing  cry  uttered  below 
showed  that  nothing  had  obstructed  his  descent  to 
the  bottom.” 

The  subsequent  narrative  leads  the  hero  through 
a  variety  of  romantic  adventures,  especially  with 
the  savages,  with  whom  he  has  several  desperate 
rencounters  and  critical  escapes.  The  track  of  ad¬ 
venture,  indeed,  strikes  into  the  same  wild  solitudes 
of  the  forest  that  have  since  been  so  frequently 
travelled  over  by  our  ingenious  countryman  Cooper. 
The  light  in  which  the  character  of  the  North 
American  Indian  has  been  exhibited  by  the  two 
writers  has  little  resemblance.  Brown’s  sketches, 
it  is  true,  are  few  and  faint.  As  far  as  they  go, 
however,  they  are  confined  to  such  views  as  are 
most  conformable  to  the  popular  conceptions,  bring¬ 
ing  into  full  relief  the  rude  and  uncouth  lineaments 
of  the  Indian  character,  its  cunning,  cruelty,  and 
unmitigated  ferocity,  with  no  intimations  of  a  more 
generous  nature.  Cooper,  on  the  other  hand,  dis¬ 
cards  all  the  coarser  elements  of  savage  life,  reserv¬ 
ing  those  only  of  a  picturesque  and  romantic  cast, 
and  elevating  the  souls  of  his  warriors  by  such  sen-- 


38  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

timents  of  courtesy,  high-toned  gallantry,  and  pas¬ 
sionate  tenderness  as  belong  to  the  riper  period  of 
civilization.  Thus  idealized,  the  portrait,  if  not 
strictly  that  of  the  fierce  and  untamed  son  of  the 
forest,  is  at  least  sufficiently  true  for  poetical  pur¬ 
poses.  Cooper  is  indeed  a  poet.  His  descriptions 
of  inanimate  nature,  no  less  than  of  savage  man, 
are  instinct  with  the  breath  of  poetry.  Witness 
his  infinitely  various  pictures  of  the  ocean ;  or  still 
more,  of  the  beautiful  spirit  that  rides  upon  its  bo¬ 
som,  the  gallant  ship,  which  under  his  touches 
becomes  an  animated  thing,  inspired  by  a  living 
soul ;  reminding  us  of  the  beautiful  superstition  of 
the  simple-hearted  natives,  who  fancied  the  bark  of 
Columbus  some  celestial  visitant,  descending  on  his 
broad  pinions  from  the  skies. 

Brown  is  far  less  of  a  colourist.  He  deals  less 
in  external  nature,  but  searches  the  depths  of  the 
soul.  He  may  be  rather  called  a  philosophical  than 
a  poetical  writer ;  for,  though  he  has  that  intensity 
of  feeling  which  constitutes  one  of  the  distinguish¬ 
ing  attributes  of  the  latter,  yet  in  his  most  tumultu¬ 
ous  bursts  of  passion  we  frequently  find  him  paus¬ 
ing  to  analyze  and  coolly  speculate  on  the  elements 
which  have  raised  it.  This  intrusion,  indeed,  of 
reason,  la  raison  froide,  into  scenes  of  the  greatest 
interest  and  emotion,  has  sometimes  the  unhappy 
effect  of  chilling  them  altogether. 

In  1800  Brown  published  the  second  part  of  his 
Arthur  Mervyn ,  whose  occasional  displays  of  en¬ 
ergy  and  pathos  by  no  means  compensate  the  vio- 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


39 


lent  dislocations  and  general  improbabilities  of  the 
narrative.  Our  author  was  led  into  these  defects 
by  the  unpardonable  precipitancy  of  his  composi¬ 
tion.  Three  of  his  romances  were  thrown  off  in 
the  course  of  one  year.  These  were  written  with 
the  printers  devil  literally  at  his  elbow,  one  being 
begun  before  another  was  completed,  and  all  of 
them  before  a  regular,  well-digested  plan  was  de¬ 
vised  for  their  execution. 

The  consequences  of  this  curious  style  of  doing 
business  are  such  as  might  have  been  predicted. 
The  incidents  are  strung  together  with  about  as 
little  connexion  as  the  rhymes  in  “the  House  that 
Jack  built;”  and  the  whole  reminds  us  of  some 
bizarre,  antiquated  edifice,  exhibiting  a  dozen  styles 
of  architecture,  according  to  the  caprice  or  conve¬ 
nience  of  its  successive  owners. 

The  reader  is  ever  at  a  loss  for  a  clew  to  guide 
him  through  the  labyrinth  of  strange,  incongruous 
incident.  It  would  seem  as  if  the  great  object  of 
the  author  was  to  keep  alive  the  state  of  suspense, 
on  the  player’s  principle,  in  the  “  Rehearsal,”  that 
“  on  the  stage  it  is  best  to  keep  the  audience  in  sus¬ 
pense  ;  for  to  guess  presently  at  the  plot  or  the 
sense  tires  them  at  the  end  of  the  first  act.  Now 
here  every  line  surprises  you,  and  brings  in  new 
matter  !”  Perhaps,  however,  all  this  proceeds  less 
from  calculation  than  from  the  embarrassment 
which  the  novelist  feels  in  attempting  a  solution  of 
his  own  riddles,  and  which  leads  him  to  put  off  the 
reader,  by  multiplying  incident  after  incident,  until 


& 


40  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

at  length,  entangled  in  the  complicated  snarl  of  his 
own  intrigue,  he  is  finally  obliged,  when  the  fatal 
hour  arrives,  to  cut  the  knot  which  he  cannot  un¬ 
ravel.  There  is  no  other  way  by  which  we  can 
account  for  the  forced  and  violent  denouemens  which 
bring  up  so  many  of  Brown’s  fictions.  Voltaire  has 
remarked,  somewhere  in  his  Commentaries  on  Cor¬ 
neille,  that  “  an  author  may  write  with  the  rapidity 
of  genius,  but  should  correct  with  scrupulous  delib¬ 
eration.”  Our  author  seems  to  have  thought  it  suf¬ 
ficient  to  comply  with  the  first  half  of  the  maxim. 

In  1801  Brown  published  his  novel  of  Clara 
Howard,  and  in  1804  closed  the  series  with  Jane 
Talbot,  first  printed  in  England.  They  are  com¬ 
posed  in  a  more  subdued  tone,  discarding  those 
startling  preternatural  incidents  of  which  he  had 
made  such  free  use  in  his  former  fictions.  In  the 
preface  to  his  first  romance,  “  Wieland,”  he  remarks, 
in  allusion  to  the  mystery  on  which  the  story  is 
made  to  depend,  that  “  it  is  a  sufficient  vindication 
of  the  writer  if  history  furnishes  one  parallel  fact.” 
But  the  French  critic,  who  tells  us  le  vrai  peut  quel- 
quefois  nctre  pas  vraisemblable,  has,  with  more  judg¬ 
ment,  condemned  this  vicious  recurrence  to  extrav¬ 
agant  and  improbable  incident.  Truth  cannot  al¬ 
ways  be  pleaded  in  vindication  of  the  author  of  a 
fiction  any  more  than  of  a  libel.  Brown  seems  to 
have  subsequently  come  into  the  same  opinion ;  for, 
in  a  letter  addressed  to  his  brother  James,  after  the 
publication  of  “  Edgar  Huntly,”  he  observes,  “  Your 
remarks  upon  the  gloominess  and  out-of-nature  in- 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


41 


cidents  of  ‘  Huntly/  if  they  be  not  just  in  their  full 
extent,  are  doubtless  such  as  most  readers  will 
make,  which  alone  is  a  sufficient  reason  for  drop¬ 
ping  the  doleful  tone  and  assuming  a  cheerful  one, 
or,  at  least,  substituting  moral  causes  and  daily  inci¬ 
dents  in  place  of  the  prodigious  or  the  singular.  I 
shall  not  fall  hereafter  into  that  strain.”  The  two 
last  novels  of  our  author,  however,  although  purified 
from  the  more  glaring  defects  of  the  preceding,  were 
so  inferior  in  their  general  power  and  originality  of 
conception,  that  they  never  rose  to  the  same  level 
in  public  favour. 

In  the  year  1801  Brown  returned  to  his  native 
city,  Philadelphia,  where  he  established  his  resi¬ 
dence  in  the  family  of  his  brother.  Here  he  con¬ 
tinued,  steadily  pursuing  his  literary  avocations ; 
and  in  1803  undertook  the  conduct  of  a  periodical, 
entitled  The  Literary  Magazine  and  American  Re¬ 
gister.  A  great  change  had  taken  place  in  his  opin¬ 
ions  on  more  than  one  important  topic  connected 
with  human  life  and  happiness,  and,  indeed,  in  his 
general  tone  of  thinking,  since  abandoning  his  pro¬ 
fessional  career.  Brighter  prospects,  no  doubt,  sug¬ 
gested  to  him  more  cheerful  considerations.  In¬ 
stead  of  a  mere  dreamer  in  the  world  of  fancy,  he 
had  now  become  a  practical  man :  larger  experi¬ 
ence  and  deeper  meditation  had  shown  him  the 
emptiness  of  his  Utopian  theories ;  and,  though  his 
sensibilities  were  as  ardent,  and  as  easily  enlisted 
as  ever  in  the  cause  of  humanity,  his  schemes  of 
amelioration  were  built  upon,  not  against  the  exist- 

F 


42  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ing  institutions  of  society.  The  enunciation  of  the 
principles  on  which  the  periodical  above  alluded  to 
was  to  be  conducted,  is  so  honourable  every  way 
to  his  heart  and  his  understanding  that  we  cannot 
refrain  from  making  a  brief  extract  from  it. 

“  In  an  age  like  this,  when  the  foundations  of 
religion  and  morality  have  been  so  boldly  attacked, 
it  seems  necessary,  in  announcing  a  work  of  this 
nature,  to  be  particularly  explicit  as  to  the  path 

which  the  editor  means  to  pursue.  He  therefore 

» 

avows  himself  to  be,  without  equivocation  or  re¬ 
serve,  the  ardent  friend  and  the  willing  champion 
of  the  Christian  religion.  Christian  piety  he  reveres 
as  the  highest  excellence  of  human  beings  ;  and  the 
amplest  reward  he  can  seek  for  his  labour  is  the 
consciousness  of  having,  in  some  degree,  however 
inconsiderable,  contributed  to  recommend  the  prac¬ 
tice  of  religious  duties.  As  in  the  conduct  of  this 
work  a  supreme  regard  will  be  paid  to  the  interests 
of  religion  and  morality,  he  will  scrupulously  guard 
against  all  that  dishonours  and  impairs  that  princi¬ 
ple.  Everything  that  savours  of  indelicacy  or  licen¬ 
tiousness  will  be  rigorously  proscribed.  His  poet¬ 
ical  pieces  may  be  dull,  but  they  shall  at  least  be 
free  from  voluptuousness  or  sensuality ;  and  his 
prose,  whether  seconded  or  not  by  genius  and 
knowledge,  shall  scrupulously  aim  at  the  promotion 
of  public  and  private  virtue.” 

During  his  abode  in  New- York  our  author  had 
formed  an  attachment  to  an  amiable  and  accom¬ 
plished  young  lady,  Miss  Elizabeth  Linn,  daughter 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


43 


of  the  excellent  and  highly-gifted  Presbyterian  di¬ 
vine,  Dr.  William  Linn,  of  that  city.  Their  mu^ 
tual  attachment,  in  which  the  impulses  of  the  heart 
were  sanctioned  by  the  understanding,  was  followed 
by  their  marriage  in  November,  1804,  after  which 
he  never  again  removed  his  residence  from  Phila¬ 
delphia. 

With  the  additional  responsibilities  of  his  new 
station,  he  pursued  his  literary  labours  with  increased 
diligence,  tie  projected  the  plan  of  an  Annual 
Reg  ister ,  the  first  work  of  the  kind  in  the  country, 
and  in  1806  edited  the  first  volume  of  the  publica¬ 
tion,  which  was  undertaken  at  the  risk  of  an  emi¬ 
nent  bookseller  of  Philadelphia,  Mr.  Conrad,  who 
had  engaged  his  editorial  labours  in  the  conduct  of 
the  former  Magazine,  begun  in  1803.  When  it  is 
considered  that  both  these  periodicals  were  placed 
under  the  superintendence  of  one  individual,  and 
that  he  bestowed  such  indefatigable  attention  on 
them  that  they  were  not  only  prepared,  but  a  large 
portion  actually  executed  by  his  own  hands,  we 
shall  form  no  mean  opinion  of  the  extent  and  vari¬ 
ety  of  his  stores  of  information  and  his  facility  in 
applying  them.  Both  works  are  replete  with  evi¬ 
dences  of  the  taste  and  erudition  of  their  editor, 
embracing  a  wide  range  of  miscellaneous  articles, 
essays,  literary  criticism,  and  scientific  researches. 
The  historical  portion  of  “  The  Register”  in  par¬ 
ticular,  comprehending,  in  addition  to  the  political 
annals  of  the  principal  states  of  Europe  and  of  our 
own  country,  an  elaborate  inquiry  into  the  origin 


44  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

and  organization  of  our  domestic  institutions,  dis¬ 
plays  a  discrimination  in  the  selection  of  incidents, 
and  a  good  faith  and  candour  in  the  mode  of  dis¬ 
cussing  them,  that  entitle  it  to  great  authority  as  a 
record  of  contemporary  transactions.  Eight  vol¬ 
umes  were  published  of  the  first-mentioned  period¬ 
ical,  and  the  latter  was  continued  under  his  direc¬ 
tion  till  the  end  of  the  fifth  volume,  1809. 

In  addition  to  these  regular,  and,  as  they  may 
be  called,  professional  labours,  he  indulged  his  pro¬ 
lific  pen  in  various  speculations,  both  of  a  literary 
and  political  character,  many  of  which  appeared  in 
the  pages  of  the  “  Portfolio.”  Among  other  occa¬ 
sional  productions,  we  may  notice  a  beautiful  bio¬ 
graphical  sketch  of  his  wife’s  brother,  Dr.  J.  B. 
Linn,  pastor  of  the  Presbyterian  church  in  Phila¬ 
delphia,  whose  lamented  death  occurred  in  the  year 
succeeding  Brown’s  marriage.  We  must  not  leave 
out  of  the  account  three  elaborate  and  extended 
pamphlets,  published  between  1803  and  1809,  on 
political  topics  of  deep  interest  to  the  community 
at  that  time.  The  first  of  these,  on  the  cession  of 
Louisiana  to  the  French,  soon  went  into  a  second 
edition.  They  all  excited  general  attention  at  the 
time  of  their  appearance  by  the  novelty  of  their 
arguments,  the  variety  and  copiousness  of  their  in¬ 
formation,  the  liberality  of  their  views,  the  independ¬ 
ence,  so  rare  at  that  day,  of  foreign  prejudices ;  the 
exemption,  still  rarer,  from  the  bitterness  of  party 
spirit;  and,  lastly,  the  tone  of  loyal  and  heartfelt 
patriotism — a  patriotism  without  cant — ‘with  which 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


45 


the  author  dwells  on  the  expanding  glory  and  pros¬ 
perity  of  his  country  in  a  strain  of  prophecy  that  it 
is  our  boast  has  now  become  history. 

Thus  occupied,  Brown’s  situation  seemed  now 
to  afford  him  all  the  means  for  happiness  attainable 
in  this  life.  His  own  labours  secured  to  him  an 
honourable  independence  and  a  high  reputation, 
which,  to  a  mind  devoted  to  professional  or  other 
intellectual  pursuits,  is  usually  of  far  higher  estima¬ 
tion  than  gain.  Round  his  own  fireside  he  found 
ample  scope  for  the  exercise  of  his  affectionate  sen¬ 
sibilities,  while  the  tranquil  pleasures  of  domestic 
life  proved  the  best  possible  relaxation  for  a  mind 
wearied  by  severe  intellectual  effort.  His  grateful 
heart  was  deeply  sensible  to  the  extent  of  his  bless¬ 
ings  ;  and  in  more  than  one  letter  he  indulges  in 
a  vein  of  reflection  which  shows  that  his  only  soli¬ 
citude  was  from  the  fear  of  their  instability.  His 
own  health  furnished  too  well-grounded  cause  for 
such  apprehensions. 

We  have  already  noticed  that  he  set  out  in  life 
with  a  feeble  constitution.  His  sedentary  habits 
and  intense  application  had  not,  as  it  may  well  be 
believed,  contributed  to  repair  the  defects  of  Nature. 
He  had  for  some  time  shown  a  disposition  to  pul¬ 
monary  complaints,  and  had  raised  blood  more  than 
once,  which  he  in  vain  endeavoured  to  persuade 
himself  did  not  proceed  from  the  lungs.  As  the 
real  character  of  the  disease  disclosed  itself  in  a 
manner  not  to  be  mistaken,  his  anxious  friends 
would  have  persuaded  him  to  cross  the  water  in 


46  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

the  hope  of  re-establishing  his  health  bj  a  season¬ 
able  change  of  climate.  But  Brown  could  not  en¬ 
dure  the  thoughts  of  so  long  a  separation  from  his 
beloved  family,  and  he  trusted  to  the  effect  of  a 
temporary  abstinence  from  business,  and  of  one  of 
those  excursions  into  the  country  by  which  he  had 
so  often  recruited  his  health  and  spirits. 

In  the  summer  of  1809  he  made  a  tour  into 
New- Jersey  and  New- York.  A  letter  addressed  to 
one  of  his  family  from  the  banks  of  the  Hudson, 
during  this  journey,  exhibits  in  melancholy  colours 
how  large  a  portion  of  his  life  had  been  clouded  by 
disease,  which  now,  indeed,  was  too  oppressive  to 
admit  of  any  other  alleviation  than  what  he  could 
find  in  the  bosom  of  his  own  family. 

“  My  dearest  Mary  —  Instead  of  wandering 
about,  and  viewing  more  nearly  a  place  that  affords 
very  pleasing  landscapes,  here  am  I,  hovering  over 
the  images  of  wife,  children,  and  sisters.  I  want 
to  write  to  you  and  home ;  and  though  unable  to 
procure  paper  enough  to  form  a  letter,  I  cannot 
help  saying  something  even  on  this  scrap. 

“  I  am  mortified  to  think  how  incurious  and  in¬ 
active  a  mind  has  fallen  to  my  lot.  I  left  home 
with  reluctance.  If  I  had  not  brought  a  beloved 
part  of  my  home  along  with  me,  I  should  probably 
have  not  left  it  at  all.  At  a  distance  from  home, 
my  enjoyments,  my  affections  are  beside  you.  If 
swayed  by  mere  inclination,  I  should  not  be  out  of 
your  company  a  quarter  of  an  hour  between  my 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


47 


parting  and  returning  hour;  but  I  have  some  mercy 
on  you  and  Susan,  and  a  due  conviction  of  my 
want  of  power  to  beguile  your  vacant  hour  with 
amusement,  or  improve  it  by  instruction.  Even  if 
I  were  ever  so  well,  and  if  my  spirits  did  not  con¬ 
tinually  hover  on  the  brink  of  dejection,  my  talk 
could  only  make  you  yawn ;  as  things  are,  my  com¬ 
pany  can  only  tend  to  create  a  gap  indeed. 

“  When  have  I  known  that  lightness  and  vivacity 
of  mind  which  the  divine  flow  of  health,  even  in 
calamity,  produces  in  some  men,  and  would  pro¬ 
duce  in  me,  no  doubt — at  least,  wdien  not  soured 
by  misfortune  ?  Never;  scarcely  ever ;  not  longer 
than  half  an  hour  at  a  time  since  I  have  called  my¬ 
self  man,  and  not  a  moment  since  I  left  you.” 

Finding  these  brief  excursions  productive  of  no 
salutary  change  in  his  health,  he  at  length  complied 
with  the  entreaties  of  his  friends,  and  determined 
to  try  the  effect  of  a  voyage  to  Europe  in  the  fol¬ 
lowing  spring.  That  spring  he  was  doomed  never 
to  behold.  About  the  middle  of  November  he  was 
taken  with  a  violent  pain  in  his  left  side,  for  which 
he  was  bled.  From  that  time  forward  he  was  con¬ 
fined  to  his  chamber.  His  malady  was  not  attend¬ 
ed  with  the  exemption  from  actual  pain  with  which 
Nature  seems  sometimes  willing  to  compensate  the 
sufferer  for  the  length  of  its  duration.  His  suffer¬ 
ings  were  incessant  and  acute ;  and  they  were  sup¬ 
ported,  not  only  without  a  murmur,  but  with  an 
appearance  of  cheerfulness,  to  which  the  hearts  of 
his  friends  could  but  ill  respond.  He  met  the  ap- 


48  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

proach  of  Death  in  the  true  spirit  of  Christian  phi¬ 
losophy.  No  other  dread  but  that  of  separation 
from  those  dear  to  him  on  earth  had  power  to  dis¬ 
turb  his  tranquillity  for  a  moment.  But  the  tem¬ 
per  of  his  mind  in  his  last  hours  is  best  disclosed 
in  a  communication  from  that  faithful  partner  who 
contributed  more  than  any  other  to  support  him 
through  them.  “  He  always  felt  for  others  more 
than  for  himself ;  and  the  evidences  of  sorrow  in 
those  around  him,  which  could  not  at  all  times  be 
suppressed,  appeared  to  affect  him  more  than  his 
own  sufferings.  Whenever  he  spoke  of  the  proba¬ 
bility  of  a  fatal  termination  to  his  disease,  it  was  in 
an  indirect  and  covert  manner,  as,  ‘  you  must  do  so 
and  so  when  I  am  absent,’  or  ‘when  I  am  asleep.’ 
He  surrendered  not  up  one  faculty  of  his  soul  but 
with  his  last  breath.  He  saw  death  in  every  step 
of  his  approach,  and  viewed  him  as  a  messenger 
that  brought  with  him  no  terrors.  He  frequently 
expressed  his  resignation ;  but  his  resignation  was 
not  produced  by  apathy  or  pain;  for  while  he  bowed 
with  submission  to  the  Divine  will,  he  felt  with  the 
keenest  sensibility  his  separation  from  those  who 
made  this  world  but  too  dear  to  him.  Towards 
the  last  he  spoke  of  death  without  disguise,  and 
appeared  to  wish  to  prepare  his  friends  for  the 
event,  which  he  felt  to  be  approaching.  A  few 
days  previous  to  his  change,  as  sitting  up  in  the 
bed,  he  fixed  his  eyes  on  the  sky,  and  desired  not 
to  be  spoken  to  until  he  first  spoke.  In  this  posi¬ 
tion,  and  with  a  serene  countenance,  he  continued 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


49 


for  some  minutes,  and  then  said  to  his  wife,  ‘  When 
I  desired  you  not  to  speak  to  me,  I  had  the  most 
transporting  and  sublime  feelings  I  have  ever  expe¬ 
rienced  ;  I  wanted  to  enjoy  them,  and  know  how 
long  they  would  last concluding  with  requesting 
her  to  remember  the  circumstance.'*’ 

A  visible  change  took  place  in  him  on  the  morn¬ 
ing  of  the  19th  of  February,  1810,  and  he  caused 
his  family  to  be  assembled  around  his  bed,  when  he 
took  leave  of  each  one  of  them  in  the  most  tender 
and  impressive  manner.  He  lingered,  however,  a 
few  days  longer,  remaining  in  the  full  possession  of 
his  faculties  to  the  22d  of  the  month,  when  he  ex¬ 
pired  without  a  struggle.  He  had  reached  the  thir¬ 
ty-ninth  year  of  his  age  the  month  preceding  his 
death.  The  family  which  he  left  consisted  of  a 
wife  and  four  children. 

There  was  nothing  striking  in  Brown’s  personaL 
appearance.  His  manners,  however,  were  distin¬ 
guished  by  a  gentleness  and  unaffected  simplicity 
which  rendered  them  extremely  agreeable.  He  pos^ 
sessed  colloquial  powers  which  do  not  always  fall 
to  the  lot  of  the  practised  and  ready  writer.  His 
rich  and  various  acquisitions  supplied  an  unfailing 
fund  for  the  edification  of  his  hearers.  They  did 
not  lead  him,  however,  to  affect  an  air  of  superior¬ 
ity,  or  to  assume  too  prominent  a  part  in  the  dia¬ 
logue,  especially  in  large  or  mixed  company,  where 
he  was  rather  disposed  to  be  silent,  reserving  the 
display  of  his  powers  for  the  unrestrained  inter¬ 
course  of  friendship.  He  was  a  stranger  not  only 


50  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

to  base  and  malignant  passions,  but  to  the  paltry 
jealousies  which  sometimes  sour  the  intercourse  of 
men  of  letters.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  ever  prompt 
to  do  ample  justice  to  the  merits  of  others.  His 
heart  was  warm  with  the  feeling  of  universal  benev¬ 
olence.  Too  sanguine  and  romantic  views  had 
exposed  him  to  some  miscalculations  and  conse¬ 
quent  disappointments  in  youth,  from  which,  how¬ 
ever,  he  was  subsequently  retrieved  by  the  strength 
of  his  understanding,  which,  combining  with  what 
may  be  called  his  natural  elevation  of  soul,  enabled 
him  to  settle  the  soundest  principles  for  the  regula¬ 
tion  of  his  opinions  and  conduct  in  after  life.  His 
reading  was  careless  and  desultory,  but  his  appetite 
was  voracious ;  and  the  great  amount  of  miscella¬ 
neous  information  which  he  thus  amassed  was  all 
demanded  to  supply  the  outpourings  of  his  mind  in 
a  thousand  channels  of  entertainment  and  instruc¬ 
tion.  His  unwearied  application  is  attested  by  the 
large  amount  of  his  works,  large  even  for  the  pres¬ 
ent  day,  when  mind  seems  to  have  caught  the  accel¬ 
erated  movement  so  generally  given  to  the  opera¬ 
tions  of  machinery.  The  whole  number  of  Brown’s 
printed  works,  comprehending  his  editorial  as  well 
as  original  productions,  to  the  former  of  which  his 
own  pen  contributed  a  very  disproportionate  share, 
is  not  less  than  four-and-twenty  printed  volumes, 
not  to  mention  various  pamphlets,  anonymous  con¬ 
tributions  to  divers  periodicals,  as  well  as  more  than 
one  compilation  of  laborious  research  which  he  left 
unfinished  at  his  death. 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


51 


Of  this  vast  amount  of  matter,  produced  within 
the  brief  compass  of  little  more  than  ten  years,  that 
portion  on  which  his  fame  as  an  author  must  per¬ 
manently  rest  is  his  novels.  We  have  already  en¬ 
tered  too  minutely  into  the  merits  of  these  produc¬ 
tions  to  require  anything  farther  than  a  few  general 
observations.  They  may  probably  claim  to  be  re¬ 
garded  as  having  first  opened  the  way  to  the  suc¬ 
cessful  cultivation  of  romantic  fiction  in  this  coun¬ 
try.  Great  doubts  were  long  entertained  of  our 
capabilities  for  immediate  success  in  this  depart¬ 
ment.  We  had  none  of  the  buoyant,  stirring  asso¬ 
ciations  of  a  romantic  age ;  none  of  the  chivalrous 
pageantry,  the  feudal  and  border  story,  or  Robin 
Hood  adventure ;  none  of  the  dim,  shadowy  super¬ 
stitions,  and  the  traditional  legends,  which  had  gath¬ 
ered  like  moss  round  every  stone,  hill,  and  valley  of 
the  olden  countries.  Everything  here  wore  a  spick- 
and-span  new  aspect,  and  lay  in  the  broad,  garish 
sunshine  of  everyday  life.  We  had  none  of  the  pic¬ 
turesque  varieties  of  situation  or  costume ;  every¬ 
thing  lay  on  the  same  dull,  prosaic  level ;  in  short, 
we  had  none  of  the  most  obvious  elements  of  po¬ 
etry  :  at  least  so  it  appeared  to  the  vulgar  eye.  It 
required  the  eye  of  genius  to  detect  the  rich  stores 
of  romantic  and  poetic  interest  that  lay  beneath  the 
crust  of  society.  Brown  was  aware  of  the  capabil¬ 
ities  of  our  country,  and  the  poverty  of  the  results 
he  was  less  inclined  to  impute  to  the  soil  than  to 
the  cultivation  of  it ;  at  least  this  would  appear  from 
some  remarks  dropped  in  his  correspondence  in 


52  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

1794,  several  years  before  he  broke  ground  in  this 
field  himself.  “  It  used  to  be  a  favourite  maxim 
with  me,  that  the  genius  of  a  poet  should  be  sacred 
to  the  glory  of  his  country.  How  far  this  rule  can 
be  reduced  to  practice  by  an  American  bard,  how 
far  he  can  prudently  observe  it,  and  what  success 
has  crowned  the  efforts  of  those  who,  in  their  com¬ 
positions,  have  shown  that  they  have  not  been  un¬ 
mindful  of  it,  is  perhaps  not  worth  the  inquiry. 

“  Does  it  not  appear  to  you  that,  to  give  poetry  a 
popular  currency  and  universal  reputation,  a  partic¬ 
ular  cast  of  manners  and  state  of  civilization  is  ne¬ 
cessary  ]  I  have  sometimes  thought  so,  but  perhaps 
it  is  an  error ;  and  the  want  of  popular  poems  ar¬ 
gues  only  the  demerit  of  those  who  have  already 
written,  or  some  defect  in  their  works,  which  unfits 
them  for  every  taste  or  understanding.” 

The  success  of  our  author’s  experiment,  which 
was  entirely  devoted  to  American  subjects,  fully  es¬ 
tablished  the  soundness  of  his  opinions,  which  have 
been  abundantly  confirmed  by  the  prolific  pens  of 
Irving,  Cooper,  Sedgwick,  and  other  accomplished 
writers,  who,  in  their  diversified  sketches  of  national 
character  and  scenery,  have  shown  the  full  capacity 
of  our  country  for  all  the  purposes  of  fiction.  Brown 
does  not  direct  himself,  like  them,  to  the  illustration 
of  social  life  and  character.  He  is  little  occupied 
with  the  exterior  forms  of  society.  He  works  in 
the  depths  of  the  heart,  dwelling  less  on  human  ac¬ 
tion  than  the  sources  of  it.  He  has  been  said  to 
have  formed  himself  on  Godwin.  Indeed,  he  open- 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


53 


ly  avowed  his  admiration  of  that  eminent  writer,  and 
has  certainly,  in  some  respects,  adopted  his  mode  of 
operation,  studying  character  with  a  philosophic 
rather  than  a  poetic  eye.  But  there  is  no  servile  im¬ 
itation  in  all  this.  He  has  borrowed  the  same 
torch,  indeed,  to  read  the  page  of  human  nature,  but 
the  lesson  he  derives  from  it  is  totally  different.  His 
great  object  seems  to  be  to  exhibit  the  soul  in  scenes 
of  extraordinary  interest.  For  this  purpose,  striking 
and  perilous  situations  are  devised,  or  circumstan¬ 
ces  of  strong  moral  excitement,  a  troubled  con¬ 
science,  partial  gleams  of  insanity,  or  bodings  of 
imaginary  evil,  which  haunt  the  soul,  and  force  it 
into  all  the  agonies  of  terror.  In  the  midst  of  the 
fearful  strife,  we  are  coolly  invited  to  investigate  its 
causes  and  all  the  various  phenomena  which  attend 
it;  every  contingency,  probability,  nay,  possibility, 
however  remote,  is  discussed  and  nicely  balanced. 
The  heat  of  the  reader  is  seen  to  evaporate  in  this 
cold-blooded  dissection,  in  which  our  author  seems 
to  rival  Butler’s  hero,  who, 

“  Profoundly  skilled  in  analytic, 

Could  distinguish  and  divide 
A  hair  ’twixt  south  and  southwest  side.” 

We  are  constantly  struck  with  the  strange  contrast 
of  over-passion  and  over-reasoning.  But  perhaps, 
after  all,  these  defects  could  not  be  pruned  away 
from  Brown’s  composition  without  detriment  to  his 
peculiar  excellences.  Si  non  errasset ,  fecerat  ille 
minus.  If  so,  we  may  willingly  pardon  the  one  for 
the  sake  of  the  other. 

We  cannot  close  without  adverting  to  our  au- 


54  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

thor’s  style.  He  bestowed  great  pains  on  the  for¬ 
mation  of  it ;  but,  in  our  opinion,  without  great  suc¬ 
cess,  at  least  in  his  novels.  It  has  an  elaborate,  fac¬ 
titious  air,  contrasting  singularly  with  the  general 
simplicity  of  his  taste  and  the  careless  rapidity  of 
his  composition.  We  are  aware,  indeed,  that  works 
of  imagination  may  bear  a  higher  flush  of  colour,  a 
poetical  varnish,  in  short,  that  must  be  refused  to 
graver  and  more  studied  narrative.  No  writer  has 
been  so  felicitous  in  reaching  the  exact  point  of 
good  taste  in  this  particular  as  Scott,  who,  on  a 
groundwork  of  prose,  may  be  said  to  have  enabled 
his  readers  to  breathe  an  atmosphere  of  poetry. 
More  than  one  author,  on  the  other  hand,  as  Flo- 
rian,  in  French,  for  example,  and  Lady  Morgan,  in 
English,  in  their  attempts  to  reach  this  middle  re¬ 
gion,  are  eternally  fluttering  on  the  wing  of  senti¬ 
ment,  equally  removed  from  good  prose  and  good 
poetry. 

Brown,  perhaps  willing  to  avoid  this  extreme, 
has  fallen  into  the  opposite  one,  forcing  his  style 
into  unnatural  vigour  and  condensation.  Unusual 
and  pedantic  epithets,  and  elliptical  forms  of  ex¬ 
pression,  in  perpetual  violation  of  idiom,  are  resort¬ 
ed  to  at  the  expense  of  simplicity  and  nature.  He 
seems  averse  to  telling  simple  things  in  a  simple 
way.  Thus,  for  example,  we  have  such  expres¬ 
sions  as  these  :  “  I  was  fraught  with  the  persuasion 
that  my  life  was  endangered.’’  “  The  outer  door 
was  ajar.  I  shut  it  with  trembling  eagerness,  and 
drew  every  bolt  that  appended  to  it.”  “  His  brain 
seemed  to  swell  beyond  its  continent “  1  waited 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 


55 


till  their  slow  and  hoarser  inspirations  showed  them 
to  be  both  asleep.  Just  then,  on  changing  my  po¬ 
sition,  my  head  struck  against  some  things  which 
depended  from  the  ceiling  of  the  closet.”  “It  was 
still  dark,  but  my  sleep  was  at  an  end,  and  by  a 
common  apparatus  (tinder-box  V)  that  lay  beside  my 
bed,  I  could  instantly  produce  a  light.”  “  On  re¬ 
covering  from  deliquium ,  you  found  it  where  it  had 
been  dropped.”  It  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  ex¬ 
amples,  which  we  should  not  have  adverted  to  at 
all  had  not  our  opinions  in  this  matter  been  at  va¬ 
riance  with  those  of  more  than  one  respectable 
critic.  This  sort  of  language  is  no  doubt  in  very 
bad  taste.  It  cannot  be  denied,  however,  that,  al¬ 
though  these  defects  are  sufficiently  general  to  give 
a  colouring  to  the  whole  of  his  composition,  yet 
his  works  afford  many  passages  of  undeniable  elo¬ 
quence  and  rhetorical  beauty.  It  must  be  remem¬ 
bered,  too,  that  his  novels  were  his  first  productions, 
thrown  off  with  careless  profusion,  and  exhibiting 
many  of  the  defects  of  an  immature  mind,  which 
longer  experience  and  practice  might  have  correct¬ 
ed.  Indeed,  his  later  writings  are  recommended  by 
a  more  correct  and  natural  phraseology,  although 
it  must  be  allowed  that  the  graver  topics  to  which 
they  are  devoted,  if  they  did  not  authorize,  would 
at  least  render  less  conspicuous  any  studied  formal¬ 
ity  and  artifice  of  expression. 

These  verbal  blemishes,  combined  with  defects 
already  alluded  to  in  the  development  of  his  plots, 
but  which  all  relate  to  the  form  rather  than  the 
fond  of  his  subject,  have  made  our  author  less  ex- 


56  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

tensively  popular  than  his  extraordinary  powers 
would  have  entitled  him  to  be.  His  peculiar  mer¬ 
its,  indeed,  appeal  to  a  higher  order  of  criticism 
than  is  to  be  found  in  ordinary  and  superficial  read¬ 
ers.  Like  the  productions  of  Coleridge  or  Words¬ 
worth,  they  seem  to  rely  on  deeper  sensibilities  than 
most  men  possess,  and  tax  the  reasoning  powers 
more  severely  than  is  agreeable  to  readers  who  re¬ 
sort  to  works  of  fiction  only  as  an  epicurean  indul¬ 
gence.  The  number  of  their  admirers  is  therefore 
necessarily  more  limited  than  that  of  writers  of  less 
talent,  who  have  shown  more  tact  in  accommoda¬ 
ting  themselves  to  the  tone  of  popular  feeling  or 
prejudice. 

But  we  are  unwilling  to  part,  with  anything  like 
a  tone  of  disparagement  lingering  on  our  lips,  with 
the  amiable  author  to  whom  our  rising  literature  is 
under  such  large  and  various  obligations;  who  first 
opened  a  view  into  the  boundless  fields  of  fiction, 
which  subsequent  adventurers  have  successfully  ex¬ 
plored  ;  who  has  furnished  so  much  for  our  instruc¬ 
tion  in  the  several  departments  of  history  and  criti¬ 
cism,  and  has  rendered  still  more  effectual  service 
by  kindling  in  the  bosom  of  the  youthful  scholar 
the  same  generous  love  of  letters  which  glowed  in 
his  own  ;  whose  writings,  in  fine,  have  uniformly 
inculcated  the  pure  and  elevated  morality  exem¬ 
plified  in  his  life.  The  only  thing  we  can  regret 
is,  that  a  life  so  useful  should  have  been  so  short, 
if,  indeed,  that  can  be  considered  short  which  has 
done  so  much  towards  attaining  life’s  great  end. 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


57 


ASYLUM  TOR  THE  BLIND,* 

JULY,  1830. 

There  is  nothing  in  which  the  moderns  surpass 
the  ancients  more  conspicuously  than  in  their  noble 
provisions  for  the  relief  of  indigence  and  distress. 
The  public  policy  of  the  ancients  seems  to  have 
embraced  only  whatever  might  promote  the  aggran¬ 
dizement  or  the  direct  prosperity  of  the  state,  and 
to  have  cared  little  for  those  unfortunate  beings 
who,  from  disease  or  incapacity  of  any  kind,  w7ere 
disqualified  from  contributing  to  this.  But  the  be¬ 
neficent  influence  of  Christianity,  combined  with 
the  general  tendency  of  our  social  institutions,  has 
led  to  the  recognition  of  rights  in  the  individual  as 
sacred  as  those  of  the  community,  and  has  suggest¬ 
ed  manifold  provisions  for  personal  comfort  and  hap¬ 
piness. 

The  spirit  of  benevolence,  thus  widely,  and  often¬ 
times  judiciously  exerted,  continued,  until  a  very  re¬ 
cent  period,  however,  strangely  insensible  to  the 
claims  of  a  large  class  of  objects,  to  whom  nature, 
and  no  misconduct  or  imprudence  of  their  own,  as 
is  too  often  the  case  with  the  subjects  of  public 
charity,  had  denied  some  of  the  most  estimable  fac¬ 
ulties  of  man.  No  suitable  institutions,  until  the 
close  of  the  last  century,  have  been  provided  for  the 
nurture  of  the  deaf  and  dumb,  or  the  blind.  Immu- 

*  An  Act  to  Incorporate  the  New-England  Asylum  for  the  Blind.  Ap¬ 
proved  March  2d,  1829. 


H 


58  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES 

red  within  hospitals  and  almshouses,  like  so  many 
lunatics  and  incurables,  they  have  been  delivered 
over,  if  they  escaped  the  physical,  to  all  the  moral 
contagion  too  frequently  incident  to  such  abodes, 
and  have  thus  been  involved  in  a  mental  darkness 
far  more  deplorable  than  their  bodily  one. 

This  injudicious  treatment  has  resulted  from  the 
erroneous  principle  of  viewing  these  unfortunate  be¬ 
ings  as  an  absolute  burden  on  the  public,  utterly  in¬ 
capable  of  contributing  to  their  own  subsistence,  or 
of  ministering  in  any  degree  to  their  own  intellect¬ 
ual  wants.  Instead,  however,  of  being  degraded  by 
such  unworthy  views,  they  should  have  been  regard¬ 
ed  as,  what  in  truth  they  are,  possessed  of  corpo¬ 
real  and  mental  capacities  perfectly  competent,  un¬ 
der  proper  management,  to  the  production  of  the 
most  useful  results.  If  wisdom  from  one  entrance 
was  quite  shut  out,  other  avenues  for  its  admission 
still  remained  to  be  opened. 

In  order  to  give  effective  aid  to  persons  in  this 
predicament,  it  is  necessary  to  place  ourselves  as 
far  as  possible  in  their  peculiar  situation,  to  consid¬ 
er  to  what  faculties  this  insulated  condition  is,  on 
the  whole,  most  favourable,  and  in  what  direction 
they  can  be  exercised  with  the  best  chance  of  suc¬ 
cess.  Without  such  foresight,  all  our  endeavours  to 
aid  them  will  only  put  them  upon  efforts  above  their 
strength,  and  result  in  serious  mortification. 

The  blind,  from  the  cheerful  ways  of  men  cut  off, 
are  necessarily  excluded  from  the  busy  theatre  of 
human  action.  Their  infirmity,  however,  which 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


59 


consigns  them  to  darkness,  and  often  to  solitude, 
would  seem  favourable  to  contemplative  habits,  and 
to  the  pursuits  of  abstract  science  and  pure  specu¬ 
lation.  Undisturbed  by  external  objects,  the  mind 
necessarily  turns  within,  and  concentrates  its  ideas 
on  any  point  of  investigation  with  greater  intensity 
and  perseverance.  It  is  no  uncommon  thing,  there¬ 
fore,  to  find  persons  setting  apart  the  silent  hours  of 
the  evening  for  the  purpose  of  composition  or  other 
purely  intellectual  exercise.  Malebranche,  when  he 
wished  to  think  intenselv,  used  to  close  his  shutters 
in  the  daytime,  excluding  every  ray  of  light ;  and 
hence  Democritus  is  said  to  have  put  out  his  eyes 
in  order  that  he  might  philosophize  the  better — a 
story,  the  veracity  of  which  Cicero,  who  relates  it, 
is  prudent  enough  not  to  vouch  for. 

Blindness  must  also  be  exceedingly  favourable  to 
the  discipline  of  the  memory.  Whoever  has  had 
the  misfortune,  from  any  derangement  of  the  organ, 
to  be  compelled  to  derive  his  knowledge  of  books 
less  from  the  eye  than  the  ear,  will  feel  the  truth  of 
this.  The  difficulty  of  recalling  what  has  once  es¬ 
caped,  of  reverting  to,  or  dwelling  on  the  passages 
read  aloud  by  another,  compels  the  hearer  to  give 
undivided  attention  to  the  subject,  and  to  impress  it 
more  forcibly  on  his  own  mind  by  subsequent  and 
methodical  reflection.  Instances  of  the  cultivation 
of  this  faculty  to  an  extraordinary  extent  have  been 
witnessed  among  the  blind,  and  it  has  been  most  ad¬ 
vantageously  applied  to  the  pursuit  of  abstract  sci¬ 
ence,  especially  mathematics. 


60  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

One  of  the  most  eminent  illustrations  of  these 
remarks  is  the  well-known  history  of  Saunderson, 
who,  though  deprived  in  his  infancy  not  only  of 
sight,  but  of  the  organ  itself,  contrived  to  become  so 
well  acquainted  with  the  Greek  tongue  as  to  read 
the  works  of  the  ancient  mathematicians  in  the  ori¬ 
ginal.  He  made  such  advances  in  the  higher  de¬ 
partments  of  the  science,  that  he  was  appointed, 
“  though  not  matriculated  at  the  University,”  to  fill 
the  chair  which  a  short  time  previous  had  been  oc¬ 
cupied  by  Sir  Isaac  Newton  at  Cambridge.  The 
lectures  of  this  blind  professor  on  the  most  abstruse 
points  of  the  Newtonian  philosophy,  and  especially 
on  optics,  naturally  filled  his  audience  with  admira¬ 
tion  ;  and  the  perspicuity  with  which  he  communi¬ 
cated  his  ideas  is  said  to  have  been  unequalled.  He 
was  enabled,  by  the  force  of  his  memory,  to  perform 
many  long  operations  in  arithmetic,  and  to  carry  in 
his  mind  the  most  complex  geometrical  figures.  As, 
however,  it  became  necessary  to  supply  the  want  of 
vision  by  some  symbols  which  might  be  sensible  to 
the  touch,  he  contrived  a  table  in  which  pins,  whose 
value  was  determined  principally  by  their  relative 
position  to  each  other,  served  him  instead  of  figures, 
while  for  his  diagrams  he  employed  pegs,  inserted  at 
the  requisite  angles  to  each  other,  representing  the 
lines  by  threads  drawn  around  them.  He  was  so 
expert  in  his  use  of  these  materials,  that,  when  per¬ 
forming  his  calculations,  he  would  change  the  posi¬ 
tion  of  the  pins  with  nearly  the  same  facility  that 
another  person  would  indite  figures,  and  when  dis- 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


6_ 


turbed  in  an  operation  would  afterward  resume  it 
again,  ascertaining  the  posture  in  which  he  had  left 
it  by  passing  his  hand  carefully  over  the  table.  To 
such  shifts  and  inventions  does  human  ingenuity  re¬ 
sort  when  stimulated  by  the  thirst  of  knowledge; 
as  the  plant,  when  thrown  into  shade  on  one  side, 
sends  forth  its  branches  eagerly  in  that  direction 
where  the  light  is  permitted  to  fall  upon  it. 

In  like  manner,  the  celebrated  mathematician, 
Euler,  continued,  for  many  years  after  he  became 
blind,  to  indite  and  publish  the  results  of  his  scien¬ 
tific  labours,  and  at  the  time  of  his  decease  left 
nearly  a  hundred  memoirs  ready  for  the  press,  most 
of  which  have  since  been  given  to  the  world.  An 
example  of  diligence  equally  indefatigable,  though 
turned  in  a  different  channel,  occurs  in  our  contem¬ 
porary  Huber,  who  has  contributed  one  of  the  most 
delightful  volumes  within  the  compass  of  natural 
history,  and  who,  if  he  employed  the  eyes  of  an¬ 
other,  guided  them  in  their  investigation  to  the 
right  results  by  the  light  of  his  own  mind. 

Blindness  would  seem  to  be  propitious,  also,  to 
the  exercise  of  the  inventive  powers.  Hence  po¬ 
etry,  from  the  time  of  Thamyris  and  the  blind  Mse- 
onides  down  to  the  Welsh  harper  and  the  ballad- 
grinder  of  our  day,  has  been  assigned  as  the  pecu¬ 
liar  province  of  those  bereft  of  vision, 

“  As  the  wakeful  bird 
Sings  darkling,  and,  in  shadiest  covert  hid, 

Tunes  her  nocturnal  note.” 

The  greatest  epic  poem  of  antiquity  was  probably, 


62  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

as  that  of  the  moderns  was  certainly,  composed  in 
darkness.  It  is  easy  to  understand  how  the  man 
who  has  once  seen  can  recall  and  body  forth  in  his 
conceptions  new  combinations  of  material  beauty  ; 
but  it  would  seem  scarcely  possible  that  one  born 
blind,  excluded  from  all  acquaintance  with  “  colour¬ 
ed  nature,”  as  Condillac  finely  styles  it,  should  ex¬ 
cel  in  descriptive  poetry.  Yet  there  are  eminent 
examples  of  this  ;  among  others,  that  of  Blacklock, 
whose  verses  abound  in  the  most  agreeable  and  pic¬ 
turesque  images.  Yet  he  could  have  formed  no 
other  idea  of  colours  than  was  conveyed  by  their 
moral  associations,  the  source,  indeed,  of  most  of 
the  pleasures  we  derive  from  descriptive  poetry.  It 
was  thus  that  he  studied  the  variegated  aspect  of 
nature,  and  read  in  it  the  successive  revolutions  of 
the  seasons,  their  freshness,  their  prime,  and  decay. 

Mons.  Guillie,  in  an  interesting  essay  on  the  in¬ 
struction  of  the  blind,  to  which  we  shall  have  occa¬ 
sion  repeatedly  to  refer,  quotes  an  example  of  the 
association  of  ideas  in  regard  to  colours,  which  oc¬ 
curred  in  one  of  his  own  pupils,  who,  in  reciting  the 
well-known  passage  in  Horace,  “  ruhente  dextera  sa- 
cras  jaculatus  arces ,”  translated  the  first  two  words 
by  “  fiery”  or  “  burning  right  hand.”  On  being  re¬ 
quested  to  render  it  literally,  he  called  it  “  red  right 
hand,”  and  gave  as  the  reason  for  his  former  ver¬ 
sion,  that  he  could  form  no  positive  conception  of 
a  red  colour;  but  that,  as  fire  was  said  to  be  red,  he 
connected  the  idea  of  heat  with  this  colour,  and  had 
therefore  interpreted  the  wrath  of  Jupiter,  demolish- 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


63 


ing  town  and  tower,  by  the  epithet  “  fiery  or  burn¬ 
ing  for  “  when  people  are  angry,”  he  added,  “they 
are  hot,  and  when  they  are  hot,  they  must  of  course 
be  red.”  He  certainly  seems  to  have  formed  a  much 
more  accurate  notion  of  red  than  Locke’s  blind 
man. 

But  while  a  gift  for  poetry  belongs  only  to  the 
inspired  few,  and  while  many  have  neither  taste 
nor  talent  for  mathematical  or  speculative  science, 
it  is  a  consolation  to  reflect  that  the  humblest  indi¬ 
vidual  who  is  destitute  of  sight  may  so  far  supply 
this  deficiency  by  the  perfection  of  the  other  senses 
as  by  their  aid  to  attain  a  considerable  degree  of 
intellectual  culture,  as  well  as  a  familiarity  with 
some  of  the  most  useful  mechanic  arts.  It  will  be 
easier  to  conceive  to  what  extent  the  perceptions 
of  touch  and  hearing  may  be  refined  if  we  reflect 
how  far  that  of  sight  is  sharpened  by  exclusive  re¬ 
liance  on  it  in  certain  situations.  Thus  the  mari¬ 
ner  descries  objects  at  night,  and  at  a  distance  upon 
the  ocean,  altogether  imperceptible  to  the  unprac¬ 
tised  eye  of  a  landsman.  And  the  North  American 
Indian  steers  his  course  undeviatingly  through  the 
trackless  wilderness,  guided  only  by  such  signs  as 
escape  the  eye  of  the  most  inquisitive  white  man. 

In  like  manner,  the  senses  of  hearing  and  feeling 
are  capable  of  attaining  such  a  degree  of  perfection 
in  a  blind  person,  that  by  them  alone  he  can  distin¬ 
guish  his  various  acquaintances,  and  even  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  persons  whom  he  has  but  rarely  met  be¬ 
fore,  the  size  of  the  apartment,  and  the  general  lo- 


64  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

cality  of  the  spots  in  which  he  may  happen  to  be, 
and  guide  himself  safely  across  the  most  solitary 
districts  and  amid  the  throng  of  towns.  Dr.  Bew, 
in  a  paper  in  the  Manchester  Collection  of  Me¬ 
moirs,  gives  an  account  of  a  blind  man  of  his  ac¬ 
quaintance  in  Derbyshire,  who  was  much  used  as  a 
guide  for  travellers  in  the  night  over  certain  intri¬ 
cate  roads,  and  particularly  when  the  tracks  were 
covered  with  snow.  This  same  man  was  afterward 
employed  as  a  projector  and  surveyor  of  roads  in 
that  county.  We  well  remember  a  blind  man  in 
the  neighbouring  town  of  Salem,  who  officiated 
some  twenty  years  since  as  the  town  crier,  when 
that  functionary  performed  many  of  the  advertising 
duties  now  usurped  by  the  newspaper,  making  his 
diurnal  round,  and  stopping  with  great  precision  at 
every  corner,  trivium  or  quodrivium,  to  chime  his 
“melodious  twang.”  Yet  this  feat,  the  familiarity 
of  which  prevented  it  from  occasioning  any  sur¬ 
prise,  could  have  resulted  only  from  the  nicest  ob¬ 
servation  of  the  undulations  of  the  ground,  or  by  an 
attention  to  the  currents  of  air,  or  the  different  sound 
of  the  voice  or  other  noises  in  these  openings,  signs 
altogether  lost  upon  the  man  of  eyes. 

Mons.  Guillie  mentions  several  apparently  well- 
attested  anecdotes  of  blind  persons  who  had  the 
power  of  discriminating  colours  by  the  touch.  One 
of  the  individuals  noticed  by  him,  a  Dutchman,  was 
so  expert  in  this  way  that  he  was  sure  to  come  off 
conqueror  at  the  card-table  by  the  knowledge  which 
he  thus  obtained  of  his  adversary’s  hand,  whenever 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


65 


it  came  to  his  turn  to  deal.  This  power  of  discrim¬ 
ination  of  colours,  which  seems  to  be  a  gift  only  of 
a  very  few  of  the  finer-fingered  gentry,  must  be  found¬ 
ed  on  the  different  consistency  or  smoothness  of  the 
ingredients  used  in  the  various  dyes.  A  more  cer¬ 
tain  method  of  ascertaining  these  colours,  that  of 
tasting  or  touching  them  with  the  tongue,  is  fre¬ 
quently  resorted  to  by  the  blind,  who  by  this  means 
often  distinguish  between  those  analogous  colours, 
as  black  and  dark  blue,  red  and  pink,  which,  having 
the  greatest  apparent  affinity,  not  unfrequently  de¬ 
ceive  the  eye. 

Diderot,  in  an  ingenious  letter  on  the  blind,  a 
r usage  de  ceux  qui  voient,  has  given  a  circumstan¬ 
tial  narration  of  his  visit  to  a  blind  man  at  Puis- 
seaux,  the  son  of  a  professor  in  the  University  of 
Paris,  and  well  known  in  his  day  from  the  various 
accomplishments  and  manual  dexterity  which  he 
exhibited,  remarkable  in  a  person  in  his  situation. 
Being  asked  what  notion  he  had  formed  of  an  eye,, 
he  replied,  “  I  conceive  it  to  be  an  organ  on  which 
the  air  produces  the  same  effect  as  this  staff  on  my 
hand.  If,  when  you  are  looking  at  an  object,  I 
should  interpose  anything  between  your  eyes  and 
that  object,  it  would  prevent  you  from  seeing  it. 
And  I  am  in  the  same  predicament  when  I  seek 
one  thing  with  my  staff  and  come  across  another.” 
An  explanation,  says  Diderot,  as  lucid  as  any  which 
could  be  given  by  Descartes,  who,  it  is  singular,  at- 
tempts,  in  his  Dioptrics,  to  explain  the  analogy  be¬ 
tween  the  senses  of  feeling  and  seeing  by  figures  of 

I 


66  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

men  blindfolded,  groping  their  way  with  staffs  in 
their  hands.  This  same  intelligent  personage  be¬ 
came  so  familiar  with  the  properties  of  touch  that 
he  seems  to  have  accounted  them  almost  equally 
valuable  with  those  of  vision.  On  being  interro¬ 
gated  if  he  felt  a  great  desire  to  have  eyes,  he  an¬ 
swered,  “Were  it  not  for  the  mere  gratification  of 
curiosity,  I  think  I  should  do  as  well  to  wish  for 
long  arms.  It  seems  to  me  that  my  hands  would 
inform  me  better  of  what  is  going  on  in  the  moon 
than  your  eyes  and  telescopes  ;  and  then  the  eyes 
lose  the  power  of  vision  more  readily  than  the  hands 
that  of  feeling.  It  would  be  better  to  perfect  the 
organ  which  I  have  than  to  bestow  on  me  that 
which  I  have  not.” 

Indeed,  the  “  geometric  sense”  of  touch,  as  Buffon 
terms  it,  as  far  as  it  reaches,  is  more  faithful,  and 
conveys  oftentimes  a  more  satisfactory  idea  of  ex¬ 
ternal  forms  than  the  eye  itself.  The  great  defect 
is  that  its  range  is  necessarily  so  limited.  It  is  told 
of  Saunderson  that  on  one  occasion  he  detected  by 
his  finger  a  counterfeit  coin  which  had  deceived  the 
eye  of  a  connoisseur.  We  are  hardly  aware  how 
much  of  our  dexterity  in  the  use  of  the  eye  arises 
from  incessant  practice.  Those  who  have  been  re¬ 
lieved  from  blindness  at  an  advanced,  or  even  early 
period  of  life,  have  been  found  frequently  to  recur 
to  the  old  and  more  familiar  sense  of  touch,  in  pref¬ 
erence  to  the  sight.  The  celebrated  English  anat¬ 
omist,  Cheselden,  mentions  several  illustrations  of 
this  fact  in  an  account  given  by  him  of  a  blind  boy, 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


67 


whom  he  had  successfully  couched  for  cataracts, 
at  the  age  of  fourteen.  It  was  long  before  the  youth 
could  discriminate  by  his  eye  between  his  old  com¬ 
panions,  the  family  cat  and  dog,  dissimilar  as  such 
animals  appear  to  us  in  colour  and  conformation. 
Being  ashamed  to  ask  the  oft-repeated  question,  he 
was  observed  one  day  to  pass  his  hand  carefully 
over  the  cat,  and  then,  looking  at  her  steadfastly,  to 
exclaim,  “  So,  puss,  I  shall  know  you  another  time.” 
It  is  more  natural  that  he  should  have  been  deceiv¬ 
ed  by  the  illusory  art  of  painting,  and  it  was  long 
before  he  could  comprehend  that  the  objects  depict¬ 
ed  did  not  possess  the  same  relief  on  the  canvass 
as  in  nature.  He  inquired,  “  Which  is  the  lying 
sense  here,  the  sight  or  the  touch  V ’ 

The  faculty  of  hearing  would  seem  susceptible  of 
a  similar  refinement  with  that  of  seeing.  To  prove 
this  without  going  into  farther  detail,  it  is  only  ne¬ 
cessary  to  observe  that  much  the  larger  proportion 
of  blind  persons  are,  more  or  less,  proficients  in  mu¬ 
sic,  and  that  in  some  of  the  institutions  for  their  edu¬ 
cation,  as  that  in  Paris,  for  instance,  all  the  pupils 
are  instructed  in  this  delightful  art.  The  gift  of  a 
natural  ear  for  melody,  therefore,  deemed  compara¬ 
tively  rare  with  the  clairvoyans ,  would  seem  to  exist 
so  far  in  every  individual  as  to  be  capable,  by  a  suit¬ 
able  cultivation,  of  affording  a  high  degree  of  relish, 
at  least  to  himself. 

As,  in  order  to  a  successful  education  of  the  blind, 
it  becomes  necessary  to  understand  what  are  the  fac¬ 
ulties,  intellectual  and  corporeal,  to  the  development 


68  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

and  exercise  of  which  their  peculiar  condition  is  best 
adapted,  so  it  is  equally  necessary  to  understand  how 
far,  and  in  what  manner,  their  moral  constitution  is 
likely  to  be  affected  by  the  insulated  position  in 
which  they  are  placed.  The  blind  man,  shut  up 
within  the  precincts  of  his  own  microcosm,  is  sub¬ 
jected  to  influences  of  a  very  different  complexion 
from  the  bulk  of  mankind,  inasmuch  as  each  of  the 
senses  is  best  fitted  to  the  introduction  of  a  certain 
class  of  ideas  into  the  mind,  and  he  is  deprived  of 
that  one  through  which  the  rest  of  his  species  receive 
by  far  the  greatest  number  of  theirs.  Thus  it  will  be 
readily  understood  that  his  notions  of  modesty  and 
delicacy  may  a  good  deal  differ  from  those  of  the 
world  at  large.  The  blind  man  of  Puisseaux  con¬ 
fessed  that  he  could  not  comprehend  why  it  should 
be  reckoned  improper  to  expose  one  part  of  the  per¬ 
son  rather  than  another.  Indeed,  the  conventional 
rules,  so  necessarily  adopted  in  society  in  this  rela¬ 
tion,  might  seem,  in  a  great  degree,  superfluous  in  a 
blind  community. 

The  blind  man  would  seem,  also,  to  be  less  likely 
to  be  endowed  with  the  degree  of  sensibility  usual 
with  those  who  enjoy  the  blessing  of  sight.  It  is 
difficult  to  say  how  much  of  our  early  education  de¬ 
pends  on  the  looks,  the  frowns,  the  smiles,  the  tears, 
the  example,  in  fact,  of  those  placed  over  and  around 
us.  From  all  this  the  blind  child  is  necessarily  ex¬ 
cluded.  These,  however,  are  the  great  sources  of 
sympathy.  We  feel  little  for  the  joys  or  the  sorrows 
which  we  do  not  witness.  “  Out  of  sight,  out  of 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


69 


mind,”  says  the  old  proverb.  Hence  people  are  so 
ready  to  turn  away  from  distress  which  they  cannot, 
or  their  avarice  will  not  suffer  them  to  relieve. 
Hence,  too,  persons  whose  compassionate  hearts 
would  bleed  at  the  infliction  of  an  act  of  cruelty  on 
so  large  an  animal  as  a  horse  or  a  dog,  for  example, 
will  crush  without  concern  a  wilderness  of  insects, 
whose  delicate  organization,  and  whose  bodily  ago¬ 
nies  are  imperceptible  to  the  naked  eye.  The 
slightest  injury  occurring  in  our  own  presence  af¬ 
fects  us  infinitely  more  than  the  tidings  of  the  most 
murderous  battle,  or  the  sack  of  the  most  populous 
and  flourishing  city  at  the  extremity  of  the  globe. 
Yet  such,  without  much  exaggeration,  is  the  relative 
position  of  the  blind,  removed  by  their  infirmity  at  a 
distance  from  the  world,  from  the  daily  exhibition 
of  those  mingled  scenes  of  grief  and  gladness,  which 
have  their  most  important  uses,  perhaps,  in  calling 
forth  our  sympathies  for  our  fellow-creatures. 

It  has  been  affirmed  that  the  situation  of  the  blind 
is  unpropitious  to  religious  sentiment.  They  are  ne¬ 
cessarily  insensible  to  the  grandeur  of  the  spectacle 
which  forces  itself  upon  our  senses  every  day  of  our 
existence.  The  magnificent  map  of  the  heavens,  with 

“  Every  star 

Which  the  clear  concave  of  a  winter’s  night 

Pours  on  the  eye,” 

is  not  unrolled  for  them.  The  revolutions  of  the 
seasons,  with  all  their  beautiful  varieties  of  form  and 
colour,  and  whatever  glories  of  the  creation  lift  the 
soul  in  wonder  and  gratitude  to  the  Creator,  are  not 
for  them.  Their  world  is  circumscribed  by  the  little 


70  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

circle  which  they  can  span  with  their  own  arms. 
All  heyond  has  for  them  no  real  existence.  This 
seems  to  have  passed  within  the  mind  of  the  mathe¬ 
matician  Saunderson,  whose  notions  of  a  Deity 
would  seem  to  have  been,  to  the  last,  exceedingly 
vague  and  unsettled.  The  clergyman  who  visited 
him  in  his  latter  hours  endeavoured  to  impress  upon 
him  the  evidence  of  a  God  as  afforded  by  the  aston¬ 
ishing  mechanism  of  the  universe.  “Alas  !”  said 
the  dying  philosopher,  “  I  have  been  condemned  to 
pass  my  life  in  darkness,  and  you  speak  to  me  of 
prodigies  which  I  cannot  comprehend,  and  which 
can  only  be  felt  by  you,  and  those  who  see  like  you!” 
When  reminded  of  the  faith  of  Newton,  Leibnitz, 
and  Clarke,  minds  from  whom  he  had  drunk  so 
deeply  of  instruction,  and  for  whom  he  entertained 
the  profoundest veneration,  he  remarked,  “The  testi¬ 
mony  of  Newton  is  not  so  strong  for  me  as  that  of 
Nature  was  for  him;  Newton  believed  on  the  Word 
of  God  himself,  while  I  am  reduced  to  believe  on  that 
of  Newton.”  He  expired  with  this  ejaculation  on 
his  lips,  “  God  of  Newton,  have  mercy  on  me  !” 

These,  however,  may  be  considered  as  the  pee¬ 
vish  ebullitions  of  a  naturally  skeptical  and  some¬ 
what  disappointed  spirit,  impatient  of  an  infirmity 
which  obstructed,  as  he  conceived,  his  advancement 
in  the  career  of  science  to  which  he  had  so  zealously 
devoted  himself.  It  was  in  allusion  to  this,  undoubt¬ 
edly,  that  he  depicted  his  life  as  having  been  “  one 
long  desire  and  continued  privation.” 

It  is  far  more  reasonable  to  believe  that  there  are 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


71 


certain  peculiarities  in  the  condition  of  the  blind 
which  more  than  counterbalance  the  unpropitious 
circumstances  above  described,  and  which  have  a 
decided  tendency  to  awaken  devotional  sentiment 
in  their  minds.  They  are  the  subjects  of  a  griev¬ 
ous  calamity,  which,  as  in  all  such  cases,  naturally 
disposes  the  heart  to  sober  reflection,  and,  when 
permanent  and  irremediable,  to  passive  resignation. 
Their  situation  necessarily  excludes  most  of  those 
temptations  which  so  sorely  beset  us  in  the  world — 
those  tumultuous  passions  which,  in  the  general  ri¬ 
valry,  divide  man  from  man,  and  imbitter  the  sweet 
cup  of  social  life — those  sordid  appetites  which  de¬ 
grade  us  to  the  level  of  the  brutes.  They  are  sub¬ 
jected,  on  the  contrary,  to  the  most  healthful  influ¬ 
ences.  Their  occupations  are  of  a  tranquil,  and 
oftentimes  of  a  purely  intellectual  character.  Their 
pleasures  are  derived  from  the  endearments  of  do¬ 
mestic  intercourse,  and  the  attentions  almost  always 
conceded  to  persons  in  their  dependant  condition 
must  necessarily  beget  a  reciprocal  kindliness  of 
feeling  in  their  own  bosoms.  In  short,  the  uniform 
tenour  of  their  lives  is  such  as  naturally  to  dispose 
them  to  resignation,  serenity,  and  cheerfulness ;  and 
accordingly,  as  far  as  our  own  experience  goes, 
these  have  usually  been  the  characteristics  of  the 
blind. 

Indeed,  the  cheerfulness  almost  universally  inci¬ 
dent  to  persons  deprived  of  sight  leads  us  to  con¬ 
sider  blindness  as,  on  the  whole,  a  less  calamity  than 
deafness.  The  deaf  man  is  continually  exposed  to 


72  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

the  sight  of  pleasures  and  to  society  in  which  he 
can  take  no  part.  He  is  the  guest  at  a  banquet  of 
which  he  is  not  permitted  to  partake,  the  spectator 
at  a  theatre  where  he  cannot  comprehend  a  sylla¬ 
ble.  If  the  blind  man  is  excluded  from  sources  of 
enjoyment  equally  important,  he  has,  at  least,  the 
advantage  of  not  perceiving,  and  not  even  compre¬ 
hending  what  he  has  lost.  It  may  be  added,  that 
perhaps  the  greatest  privation  consequent  on  blind¬ 
ness  is  the  inability  to  read,  as  that  on  deafness  is 
the  loss  of  the  pleasures  of  society.  Now  the  eyes 
of  another  may  be  made,  in  a  great  degree,  to  sup¬ 
ply  this  defect  of  the  blind  man,  while  no  art  can 
afford  a  corresponding  substitute  to  the  deaf  for  the 
privations  to  which  he  is  doomed  in  social  inter¬ 
course.  He  cannot  hear  with  the  ears  of  another. 
As,  however,  it  is  undeniable  that  blindness  makes 
one  more  dependant  than  deafness,  we  may  be  con¬ 
tent  with  the  conclusion  that  the  former  would  be 
the  most  eligible  for  the  rich,  and  the  latter  for  the 
poor.  Our  remarks  will  be  understood  as  applying 
to  those  only  w  ho  are  wholly  destitute  of  the  facul¬ 
ties  of  sight  and  hearing.  A  person  afflicted  only 
with  a  partial  derangement  or  infirmity  of  vision  is 
placed  in  the  same  tantalizing  predicament  above 
described  of  the  deaf,  and  is,  consequently,  found  to 
be  usually  of  a  far  more  impatient  and  irritable  tem¬ 
perament,  and,  consequently,  less  happy  than  the 
totally  blind.  With  all  this,  we  doubt  wdiether  there 
be  one  of  our  readers,  even  should  he  assent  to  the 
general  truth  of  our  remarks,  who  would  not  infi- 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


73 


nitely  prefer  to  incur  partial  to  total  blindness,  and 
deafness  to  either.  Such  is  the  prejudice  in  favour 
of  eyes  ! 

Patience,  perseverance,  habits  of  industry,  and, 
above  all.  a  craving  appetite  for  knowledge,  are  suf¬ 
ficiently  common  to  be  considered  as  characteris¬ 
tics  of  the  blind,  and  have  tended  greatly  to  facili¬ 
tate  their  education,  which  must  otherwise  prove 
somewhat  tedious,  and,  indeed,  doubtful  as  to  its  re¬ 
sults,  considering  the  formidable  character  of  the 
obstacles  to  be  encountered.  A  curious  instance 
of  perseverance  in  overcoming  such  obstacles  oc¬ 
curred  at  Paris,  when  the  institutions  for  the  deaf 
and  dumb  and  for  the  blind  were  assembled  under 
the  same  roof  in  the  convent  of  the  Celestines. 
The  pupils  of  the  two  seminaries,  notwithstanding 
the  apparently  insurmountable  barrier  interposed 
between  them  by  their  respective  infirmities,  con¬ 
trived  to  open  a  communication  with  each  other, 
which  they  carried  on  with  the  greatest  vivacity. 

It  was  probably  the  consideration  of  those  moral 
qualities,  as  well  as  of  the  capacity  for  improve¬ 
ment  which  we  have  described  as  belonging  to  the 
blind,  which  induced  the  benevolent  Hafiy,  in  con¬ 
junction  with  the  Philanthropic  Society  of  Paris,  to 
open  there,  in  1784,  the  first  regular  seminary  for 
their  education  ever  attempted.  This  institution 
underwent  several  modifications,  not  for  the  better, 
during  the  revolutionary  period  which  followed ; 
until,  in  1816,  it  was  placed  on  the  respectable  ba¬ 
sis  on  which  it  now  exists,  under  the  direction  of 

K 


74  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

Dr.  Guillie,  whose  untiring  exertions  have  been 
blessed  with  the  most  beneficial  results. 

We  shall  give  a  brief  view  of  the  course  of  edu¬ 
cation  pursued  under  his  direction,  as  exhibited  by 
him  in  the  valuable  treatise  to  which  we  have  al¬ 
ready  referred,  occasionally  glancing  at  the  method 
adopted  in  the  corresponding  institution  at  Edin¬ 
burgh. 

The  fundamental  object  proposed  in  every  scheme 
of  education  for  the  blind  is,  to  direct  the  attention 
of  the  pupil  to  those  studies  and  mechanic  arts 
which  he  will  be  able  afterward  to  pursue  by  means 
of  his  own  exertions  and  resources,  without  any 
external  aid.  The  sense  of  touch  is  the  one,  there¬ 
fore,  almost  exclusively  relied  on.  The  fingers  are 
the  eyes  of  the  blind.  They  are  taught  to  read  in 
Paris  by  feeling  the  surface  of  metallic  types,  and 
in  Edinburgh  by  means  of  letters  raised  on  a  blank 
leaf  of  paper.  If  they  are  previously  acquainted 
with  spelling,  which  may  be  easily  taught  them  be¬ 
fore  entering  the  institution,  they  learn  to  discrimi¬ 
nate  the  several  letters  with  great  facility.  Their 
perceptions  become  so  fine  by  practice,  that  they 
can  discern  even  the  finest  print,  and  when  the  fin¬ 
gers  fail  them,  readily  distinguish  it  by  applying  the 
tongue.  A  similar  method  is  employed  for  instruct¬ 
ing  them  in  figures ;  the  notation  table,  invented  by 
Saunderson,  and  once  used  in  the  Paris  seminary, 
having  been  abandoned  as  less  simple  and  obvious, 
although  his  symbols  for  the  representation  of  geo¬ 
metrical  diagrams  are  still  retained. 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


75 


As  it  would  be  labour  lost  to  learn  the  art  of  read¬ 
ing  without  having  books  to  read,  various  attempts 
have  been  made  to  supply  this  desideratum.  The 
first  hint  of  the  form  now  adopted  for  the  impres¬ 
sion  of  these  books  was  suggested  by  the  appear¬ 
ance  exhibited  on  the  reverse  side  of  a  copy  as  re¬ 
moved  fresh  from  the  printing-press.  In  imitation 
of  this,  a  leaf  of  paper  of  a  firm  texture  is  forcibly 
impressed  with  types  unstained  by  ink,  and  larger 
than  the  ordinary  size,  until  a  sufficiently  bold  relief 
has  been  obtained  to  enable  the  blind  person  to  dis¬ 
tinguish  the  characters  by  the  touch.  The  French 
have  adopted  the  Italian  hand,  or  one  very  like  it, 
for  the  fashion  of  the  letters,  while  the  Scotch  have 
invented  one  more  angular  and  rectilinear,  which, 
besides  the  advantage  of  greater  compactness,  is 
found  better  suited  to  accurate  discrimination  by  the 
touch  than  smooth  and  extended  curves  and  circles. 

Several  important  works  have  been  already  print¬ 
ed  on  this  plan,  viz.,  a  portion  of  the  Scriptures, 
catechisms,  and  offices  for  daily  prayer ;  grammars 
in  the  Greek,  Latin,  French,  English,  Italian,  and 
Spanish  languages ;  a  Latin  selecta,  a  geography,  a 
course  of  general  history,  a  selection  from  English 
poets  and  prose-writers,  a  course  of  literature,  with 
a  compilation  of  the  choicest  specimens  of  French 
eloquence.  With  all  this,  the  art  of  printing  for  the 
blind  is  still  in  its  infancy.  The  characters  are  so 
unwieldy,  and  the  leaves  (which  cannot  be  printed 
on  the  reverse  side,  as  this  would  flatten  the  letters 
upon  the  other)  are  necessarily  so  numerous  as  to 


76  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

make  the  volume  exceedingly  bulky,  and  of  course 
expensive.  The  Gospel  of  St.  John,  for  example, 
expands  into  three  large  octavo  volumes.  Some 
farther  improvement  must  occur,  therefore,  before 
the  invention  can  become  extensively  useful.  There 
can  be  no  reason  to  doubt  of  such  a  result  eventu¬ 
ally,  for  it  is  only  by  long  and  repeated  experiment 
that  the  art  of  printing  in  the  usual  way,  and  every 
other  art,  indeed,  has  been  brought  to  its  present 
perfection.  Perhaps  some  mode  may  be  adopted 
like  that  of  stenography,  which,  although  encum¬ 
bering  the  learner  with  some  additional  difficulties 
at  first,  may  abundantly  compensate  him  in  the  con¬ 
densed  forms,  and  consequently  cheaper  and  more 
numerous  publications  which  could  be  afforded  by 
it.  Perhaps  ink,  or  some  other  material  of  greater 
consistency  than  that  ordinarily  used  in  printing 
may  be  devised,  which,  when  communicated  by  the 
type  to  the  paper,  will  leave  a  character  sufficiently 
raised  to  be  distinguished  by  the  touch.  We  have 
known  a  blind  person  able  to  decipher  the  charac¬ 
ters  in  a  piece  of  music  to  which  the  ink  had  been 
imparted  more  liberally  than  usual.  In  the  mean 
time,  what  has  been  already  done  has  conferred  a 
service  on  the  blind  which  we,  who  become  insen¬ 
sible  from  the  very  prodigality  of  our  blessings,  can¬ 
not  rightly  estimate.  The  glimmering  of  the  taper, 
which  is  lost  in  the  blaze  of  day,  is  sufficient  to 
guide  the  steps  of  the  wanderer  in  darkness.  The 
unsealed  volume  of  Scripture  will  furnish  him  with 
the  best  sources  of  consolation  under  every  priva- 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


77 


tion ;  the  various  grammars  are  so  many  keys  with 
which  to  unlock  the  stores  of  knowledge  to  enrich 
his  after  life,  and  the  selections  from  the  most  beau¬ 
tiful  portions  of  elegant  literature  will  afford  him  a 
permanent  source  of  recreation  and  delight. 

One  method  used  for  instruction  in  writing  is,  to 
direct  the  pencil,  or  stylus,  in  a  groove  cut  in  the 
fashion  of  the  different  letters.  Other  modes,  how¬ 
ever,  too  complex  for  description  here,  are  resorted 
to,  by  which  the  blind  person  is  enabled  not  only  to 
write,  but  to  read  what  he  has  thus  traced.  A  port¬ 
able  writing-case  for  this  purpose  has  also  ,  been  in¬ 
vented  by  one  of  the  blind,  who,  it  is  observed,  are 
the  most  ingenious  in  supplying,  as  they  are  best 
acquainted  with,  their  own  wants.  A  very  simple 
method  of  epistolary  correspondence,  by  means  of  a 
string-alphabet,  as  it  is  called,  consisting  of  a  cord 
or  riband  in  which  knots  of  various  dimensions 
represent  certain  classes  of  letters,  has  been  devised 
by  two  blind  men  at  Edinburgh.  This  contrivance, 
which  is  so  simple  that  it  can  be  acquired  in  an 
hour’s  time  by  the  most  ordinary  capacity,  is  as¬ 
serted  to  have  the  power  of  conveying  ideas  with 
equal  precision  with  the  pen.  A  blind  lady  of  our 
acquaintance,  however,  whose  line  understanding 
and  temper  have  enabled  her  to  surmount  many  of 
the  difficulties  of  her  situation,  after  a  trial  of  this 
invention,  gives  the  preference  to  the  mode  usually 
adopted  by  her  of  pricking  the  letters  on  the  paper 
with  a  pin — an  operation  which  she  performs  with 
astonishing  rapidity,  and  which,  in  addition  to  the 


78  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

advantage  possessed  by  the  string-alphabet  of  being 
legible  by  the  touch,  answers  more  completely  the 
purposes  of  epistolary  correspondence,  since  it  may 
be  readily  interpreted  by  any  one  on  being  held  up 
to  the  light. 

The  scheme  of  instruction  at  the  institution  for 
the  blind  in  Paris  comprehends  geography,  history, 
the  Greek  and  Latin,  together  with  the  French, 
Italian,  and  English  languages,  arithmetic,  and  the 
higher  branches  of  mathematics,  music,  and  some 
of  the  most  useful  mechanic  arts.  For  mathemat¬ 
ics,  the  pupils  appear  to  discover  a  natural  aptitude, 
many  of  them  attaining  such  proficiency  as  not  only 
to  profit  by  the  public  lectures  of  the  most  eminent 
professors  in  the  sciences,  but  to  carry  away  the  high¬ 
est  prizes  in  the  lyceums  in  a  competition  with  those 
who  possess  the  advantages  of  sight.  In  music,  as 
we  have  before  remarked,  they  all  make  greater  or 
less  proficiency.  They  are  especially  instructed  in 
the  organ,  which,  from  its  frequency  in  the  churches, 
affords  one  of  the  most  obvious  means  of  obtaining 
a  livelihood. 

The  method  of  tuition  adopted  is  that  of  mutual 
instruction.  The  blind  are  ascertained  to  learn  most 
easily  and  expeditiously  from  those  in  the  same  con¬ 
dition  with  themselves.  Two  male  teachers,  with 
one  female,  are  in  this  way  found  adequate  to  the 
superintendence  of  eighty  scholars,  which,  consid¬ 
ering  the  obstacles  to  be  encountered,  must  be  ad¬ 
mitted  to  be  a  small  apparatus  for  the  production 
of  such  extensive  results. 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


79 


In  teaching  them  the  mechanic  arts,  two  princi¬ 
ples  appear  to  be  kept  in  view,  namely,  to  select 
such  for  each  individual  respectively  as  may  be  best 
adapted  to  his  future  residence  and  destination ;  the 
trades,  for  example,  most  suitable  for  a  seaport  be¬ 
ing  those  least  so  for  the  country,  and  vice  versa. 
Secondly,  to  confine  their  attention  to  such  occu¬ 
pations  as  from  their  nature  are  most  accessible  to, 
and  which  can  be  most  perfectly  attained  by,  per¬ 
sons  in  their  situation.  It  is  absurd  to  multiply  ob¬ 
stacles  from  the  mere  vanity  of  conquering  them. 

Printing  is  an  art  for  which  the  blind  show  par¬ 
ticular  talent,  going  through  all  the  processes  of 
composing,  serving  the  press,  and  distributing  the 
types  with  the  same  accuracy  with  those  who  can 
see.  Indeed,  much  of  this  mechanical  occupation 
with  the  clairvoyans  (we  are  in  want  of  some  such 
compendious  phrase  in  our  language)  appears  to  be 
the  result  rather  of  habit  than  any  exercise  of  the 
eye.  The  blind  print  all  the  books  for  their  own 
use.  They  are  taught  also  to  spin,  to  knit,  in  which* 
last  operation  they  are  extremely  ready,  knitting 
very  finely,  with  open  work,  &c.,  and  are  much 
employed  by  the  Parisian  hosiers  in  the  manufac¬ 
ture  of  elastic  vests,  shirts,  and  petticoats.  They 
make  purses,  delicately  embroidered  with  figures  of 
animals  and  flowers,  whose  various  tints  are  select¬ 
ed  with  perfect  propriety.  The  fingers  of  the  fe¬ 
males  are  observed  to  be  particularly  adapted  to  this 
nicer  sort  of  work,  from  their  superior  delicacy,  or¬ 
dinarily,  to  those  of  men.  They  are  employed  also 


80  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


in  manufacturing  girths,  in  netting  in  all  its  branches, 
in  making  shoes  of  list,  plush,  cloth,  coloured  skin, 
and  list  carpets,  of  which  a  vast  number  is  annually 
disposed  of.  Weaving  is  particularly  adapted  to  the 
blind,  who  perform  all  the  requisite  manipulation 
without  any  other  assistance  but  that  of  setting  up 
the  warp.  They  manufacture  whips,  straw  bot¬ 
toms  for  chairs,  coarse  straw  hats,  rope,  cord,  pack¬ 
thread,  baskets,  straw,  rush,  and  plush  mats,  which 
are  very  saleable  in  France. 

The  articles  manufactured  in  the  Asylum  for  the 
Blind  in  Scotland  are  somewhat  different ;  and  as 
they  show  for  what  an  extensive  variety  of  occupa¬ 
tions  they  may  be  qualified  in  despite  of  their  in¬ 
firmity,  we  will  take  the  liberty,  at  the  hazard  of 
being  somewhat  tedious,  of  quoting  the  catalogue 
of  them  exhibited  in  one  of  their  advertisements. 
The  articles  offered  for  sale  consist  of  cotton  and 
linen  cloths,  ticked  and  striped  Hollands,  towelling 
and  diapers,  worsted  net  for  fruit-trees ;  hair  cloth, 
-hair  mats,  and  hair  ropes  ;  basket-work  of  every  de¬ 
scription;  hair,  India  hemp,  and  straw  door-mats; 
saddle  girths;  rope  and  twines  of  all  kinds;  netting 
for  sheep-pens ;  garden  and  onion  twine  nets ;  fishing 
nets, beehives, mattresses,  and  cushions;  featherbeds, 
bolsters,  and  pillows ;  mattresses  and  beds  of  every 
description  cleaned  and  repaired.  The  labours  in 
this  department  are  performed  by  the  boys.  The  girls 
are  employed  in  sewing,  knitting  stockings,  spinning, 
making  fine  banker’s  twine,  and  various  works  be¬ 
sides,  usually  executed  by  well-educated  females. 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


81 


Such  is  the  emulation  of  the  blind,  according  to 
Dr.  Guillie,  in  the  institution  of  Paris,  that  hitherto 
there  has  been  no  necessity  of  stimulating  their  ex¬ 
ertions  by  the  usual  motives  of  reward  or  punish¬ 
ment  Delighted  with  their  sensible  progress  in 
vanquishing  the  difficulties  incident  to  their  condi¬ 
tion,  they  are  content  if  they  can  but  place  them¬ 
selves  on  a  level  with  the  more  fortunate  of  their 
fellow-creatures.  And  it  is  observed  that  many, 
who  in  the  solitude  of  their  own  homes  have  failed 
in  their  attempts  to  learn  some  of  the  arts  taught 
in  this  institution,  have  acquired  a  knowledge  of 
them  with  great  alacrity  when  cheered  by  the  sym¬ 
pathy  of  individuals  involved  in  the  same  calamity 
with  themselves,  and  with  whom,  of  course,  they 
could  compete  with  equal  probability  of  success. 

The  example  of  Paris  has  been  followed  in  the 
principal  cities  in  most  of  the  other  countries  of 
Europe:  in  England,  Scotland,  Russia,  Prussia,  Aus¬ 
tria,  Switzerland,  Holland,  and  Denmark.  These 
establishments,  which  are  conducted  on  the  same 
general  principles,  have  adopted  a  plan  of  educa¬ 
tion  more  or  less  comprehensive,  some  of  them,  like 
those  of  Paris  and  Edinburgh,  involving  the  higher 
branches  of  intellectual  education,  and  others,  as  in 
London  and  Liverpool,  confining  themselves  chiefly 
to  practical  arts.  The  results,  however,  have  been 
in  the  highest  degree  cheering  to  the  philanthropist 
in  the  light  thus  poured  in  upon  minds  to  which  all 
the  usual  avenues  were  sealed  up — in  the  opportu¬ 
nity  afforded  them  of  developing  those  latent  pow- 

L 


82  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ers  which  had  been  hitherto  wasted  in  inaction,  and 
in  the  happiness  thus  imparted  to  an  unfortunate 
class  of  beings,  who  now,  for  the  first  time,  were 
permitted  to  assume  their  proper  station  in  society, 
and  instead  of  encumbering,  to  contribute,  by  their 
own  exertions,  to  the  general  prosperity. 

We  rejoice  that  the  inhabitants  of  our  own  city 
have  been  the  first  to  give  an  example  of  such  be¬ 
neficent  institutions  in  the  New  World.  And  it  is 
principally  with  the  view  of  directing  the  attention 
of  the  public  towards  it  that  we  have  gone  into  a 
review  of  what  has  been  effected  in  this  way  in 
Europe.  The  credit  of  having  first  suggested  the 
undertaking  here  is  due  to  our  townsman,  Dr.  John 
D.  Fisher,  through  whose  exertions,  aided  by  those 
of  several  other  benevolent  individuals,  the  subject 
was  brought  before  the  Legislature  of  this  state, 
and  an  act  of  incorporation  was  granted  to  the  pe¬ 
titioners,  bearing  date  March  2d,  1829,  authorizing 
them,  under  the  title  of  the  “New-England  Asylum 
for  the  Blind,”  to  hold  property,  receive  donations 
and  bequests,  and  to  exercise  the  other  functions 
usually  appertaining  to  similar  corporations. 

A  resolution  was  subsequently  passed,  during  the 
same  session,  requiring  the  selectmen  of  the  several 
towns  throughout  the  commonwealth  to  make  re¬ 
turns  of  the  number  of  blind  inhabitants,  with  their 
ages,  periods  of  blindness,  personal  condition,  &c. 
By  far  the  larger  proportion  of  these  functionaries, 
however,  with  a  degree  of  apathy  which  does  them 
very  little  credit,  paid  no  attention  whatever  to  this 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


83 


requisition.  By  the  aid  of  such  as  did  comply  with 
it,  and  by  means  of  circulars  addressed  to  the  cler¬ 
gymen  of  the  various  parishes,  advices  have  been 
received  from  one  hundred  and  forty-one  towns, 
comprising  somewhat  less  than  half  of  the  whole 
number  within  the  state.  From  this  imperfect  es¬ 
timate  it  would  appear  that  the  number  of  blind 
persons  in  these  towns  amounts  to  two  hundred  and 
forty-three,  of  whom  more  than  one  fifth  are  under 
thirty  years  of  age,  which  period  is  assigned  as  the 
limit  within  which  they  cannot  fail  of  receiving  all 
the  benefit  to  be  derived  from  the  system  of  instruc¬ 
tion  pursued  in  the  institutions  for  the  blind. 

The  proportion  of  the  blind  to  our  whole  popu¬ 
lation,  as  founded  on  the  above  estimate,  is  some¬ 
what  higher  than  that  established  by  Zeune  for  the 
corresponding  latitudes  in  Europe,  where  blindness 
decreases  in  advancing  from  the  equator  to  the  poles, 
it  being  computed  in  Egypt  at  the  rate  of  one  to  one 
hundred,  and  in  Norway  of  one  to  one  thousand, 
which  last  is  conformable  to  ours. 

Assuming  the  preceding  estimate  as  the  basis,  it 
will  appear  that  there  are  about  five  hundred  blind 
persons  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts  at  the  present 
moment ;  and,  adopting  the  census  of  1820,  there 
could  not  at  that  time,  according  to  the  same  rate, 
be  less  than  sixteen  hundred  and  fifty  in  all  New- 
England,  one  fifth  being  under  thirty  years  of  age; 
a  number  which,  as  the  blind  are  usually  retired 
from  public  observation,  far  exceeds  what  might  be 
conceived  on  a  cursory  inspection. 


84  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

From  the  returns  it  would  appear  that  a  large 
proportion  of  the  blind  in  Massachusetts  are  in  hum¬ 
ble  circumstances,  and  a  still  larger  proportion  of 
those  in  years  indigent  or  paupers.  This  is  impu¬ 
table  to  their  having  learned  no  trade  or  profession 
in  their  youth,  so  that,  when  deprived  of  their  nat¬ 
ural  guardians,  they  have  necessarily  become  a  charge 
upon  the  public. 

Since  the  year  1825  an  appropriation  has  been 
continued  by  the  Legislature  for  the  purpose  of 
maintaining  a  certain  number  of  pupils  at  the  Asy¬ 
lum  for  the  Deaf  and  Dumb  at  Hartford.  A  reso¬ 
lution  was  obtained  during  the  last  session  of  the 
General  Court  authorizing  the  governor  to  pay 
over  to  the  Asylum  for  the  Blind  whatever  balance 
of  the  sum  thus  appropriated  might  remain  in  the 
treasury  unexpended  at  the  end  of  the  current  year, 
and  the  same  with  every  subsequent  year  to  which 
the  grant  extended,  unless  otherwise  advised.  Seven 
hundred  dollars  only  have  been  received  as  the  bal¬ 
ance  of  the  past  year,  a  sum  obviously  inadequate 
to  the  production  of  any  important  result,  and  far 
inferior  to  what  had  been  anticipated  by  the  friends 
of  the  measure.  On  the  whole,  we  are  inclined  to 
doubt  whether  this  will  be  found  the  most  suitable 
mode  of  creating  resources  for  the  asylum.  Al¬ 
though,  in  fact,  it  disposes  only  of  the  superfluity, 
it  has  the  appearance  of  subtracting  from  the  posi¬ 
tive  revenues  of  the  Deaf  and  Dumb,  an  institution 
of  equal  merit  and  claims  with  any  other  whatever. 
The  Asylum  for  the  Blind  is  an  establishment  of 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


85 


too  much  importance  to  be  left  thus  dependant  on 
a  precarious  contingent,  and  is  worthy,  were  it  only 
in  an  economical  point  of  view,  of  being  placed  by 
the  state  on  some  more  secure  and  ample  basis. 

As  it  is,  the  want  of  funds  opposes  a  sensible  ob¬ 
struction  to  its  progress.  The  pressure  of  the  times 
has  made  the  present  moment  exceedingly  unfavour¬ 
able  to  personal  solicitation,  although  so  much  has 
been  effected  in  this  way,  through  the  liberality  of 
a  few  individuals,  that,  as  we  understand,  prepara¬ 
tions  are  now  making  for  procuring  the  requisite 
instructers  and  apparatus  on  a  moderate  and  some¬ 
what  reduced  scale. 

As  to  the  comprehensiveness  of  the  scheme  of 
education  to  be  pursued  at  the  the  asylum,  whether 
it  shall  embrace  intellectual  culture,  or  be  confined 
simply  to  the  mechanic  arts,  this  must,  of  course,  be 
ultimately  determined  by  the  extent  of  its  resources. 
We  trust,  however,  it  will  be  enabled  to  adopt  the 
former  arrangement,  at  least  so  far  as  to  afford  the 
pupils  an  acquaintance  with  the  elements  of  the 
more  popular  sciences.  There  is  such  a  diffusion 
of  liberal  knowledge  among  all  classes  in  this  coun¬ 
try,  that  if  the  blind  are  suffered  to  go  without  any 
tincture  of  it  from  the  institution,  they  will  always, 
whatever  be  the  skill  acquired  by  them  in  mechan¬ 
ical  occupations,  continue  to  feel  a  sense  of  their 
own  mental  inferiority.  The  connexion  of  these 
higher  with  the  more  direct  objects  of  the  institu¬ 
tion  will  serve,  moreover,  to  give  it  greater  dignity 
and  importance.  And  while  it  will  open  sources 


86  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

of  knowledge  from  which  many  may  be  in  a  situa- 
tion  to  derive  permanent  consolation,  it  will  instruct 
the  humblest  individual  in  what  may  be  of  essential 
utility  to  him,  as  writing  and  arithmetic,  for  exam¬ 
ple,  in  his  intercourse  with  the  world. 

To  what  extent  it  is  desirable  that  the  asylum 
be  placed  on  a  charitable  foundation  is  another 
subject  of  consideration.  This,  we  believe,  is  the 
character  of  most  of  the  establishments  in  Europe. 
That  in  Scotland,  for  instance,  contains  about  a 
hundred  subjects,  who,  with  their  families  included, 
amount  to  two  hundred  and  fifty  souls,  all  support¬ 
ed  from  the  labours  of  the  blind,  conjointly  with  the 
funds  of  the  institution.  This  is  undoubtedly  one 
of  the  noblest  and  most  discriminating  charities  in 
the  world.  It  seems  probable,  however,  that  this  is 
not  the  plan  best  adapted  to  our  exigencies.  We 
want  not  to  maintain  the  blind,  but  to  put  them  in 
the  way  of  contributing  to  their  own  maintenance. 
By  placing  the  expenses  of  tuition  and  board  as  low 
as  possible,  the  means  of  effecting  this  will  be  brought 
within  the  reach  of  a  large  class  of  them ;  and  for 
the  rest,  it  will  be  obvious  economy  in  the  state  to 
provide  them  with  the  means  of  acquiring  an  edu¬ 
cation  at  once  that  may  enable  them  to  contribute 
permanently  towards  their  own  support,  which,  in 
some  shape  or  other,  is  now  chargeable  on  the  pub¬ 
lic.  Perhaps,  however,  some  scheme  may  be  de¬ 
vised  for  combining  both  these  objects,  if  this  be 
deemed  preferable  to  the  adoption  of  either  exclu¬ 
sively. 


ASYLUM  FOR  THE  BLIND. 


87 


We  are  convinced  that,  as  far  as  the  institution 
is  to  rely  for  its  success  on  public  patronage,  it  will 
not  be  disappointed.  If  once  successfully  in  oper¬ 
ation,  and  brought  before  the  public  eye,  it  cannot 
fail  of  exciting  a  very  general  sympathy,  which,  in 
this  country,  has  never  been  refused  to  the  calls  of 
humanity.  No  one,  we  think,  who  has  visited  the 
similar  endowments  in  Paris  or  in  Edinburgh  will 
easily  forget  the  sensations  which  he  experienced 
on  witnessing  so  large  a  class  of  his  unfortunate 
fellow-creatures  thus  restored  from  intellectual  dark¬ 
ness  to  the  blessings,  if  we  may  so  speak,  of  light 
and  liberty.  There  is  no  higher  evidence  of  the 
worth  of  the  human  mind  than  its  capacity  of  draw¬ 
ing  consolation  from  its  own  resources  under  so 
heavy  a  privation ;  so  that  it  not  only  can  exhibit 
resignation  and  cheerfulness,  but  energy  to  burst  the 
fetters  with  which  it  is  encumbered.  Who  could 
refuse  his  sympathy  to  the  success  of  these  efforts, 
or  withhold  from  the  subject  of  them  the  means  of 
attaining  his  natural  level  and  usefulness  in  society, 
from  which  circumstances,  less  favourable  to  him 
than  to  ourselves,  have  hitherto  excluded  him  ? 


88  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


IRVING’S  CONQUEST  OF  GRANADA,* 

OCTOBER,  182  9. 

Almost  as  many  qualifications  may  be  demanded 
for  a  perfect  historian,  indeed  the  Abbe  Mably  has 
enumerated  as  many,  as  Cicero  stipulates  for  a  per¬ 
fect  orator.  He  must  be  strictly  impartial ;  a  lover 
of  truth  under  all  circumstances,  and  ready  to  de¬ 
clare  it  at  all  hazards:  he  must  be  deeply  conver¬ 
sant  with  whatever  may  bring  into  relief  the  char¬ 
acter  of  the  people  he  is  depicting,  not  merely  with 
their  laws,  constitution,  general  resources,  and  all 
the  other  more  visible  parts  of  the  machinery  of 
government,  but  with  the  nicer  moral  and  social  re¬ 
lations,  the  informing  spirit  which  gives  life  to  the 
whole,  but  escapes  the  eye  of  a  vulgar  observer.  If 
he  has  to  do  with  other  ages  and  nations,  he  must 
transport  himself  into  them,  expatriating  himself,  as 
it  were,  from  his  own,  in  order  to  get  the  very  form 
and  pressure  of  the  times  he  is  delineating.  He 
must  be  conscientious  in  his  attention  to  geogra¬ 
phy,  chronology,  &c.,  an  inaccuracy  in  which  has 
been  fatal  to  more  than  one  good  philosophical  his¬ 
tory;  and,  mixed  up  with  all  these  drier  details,  he 
must  display  the  various  powers  of  a  novelist  or 
dramatist,  throwing  his  characters  into  suitable  lights 
and  shades,  disposing  his  scenes  so  as  to  awaken 

*  “  A  Chronicle  of  the  Conquest  of  Granada.  By  Fray  Antonia  Aga- 
pida.”  1829  :  2  vols.,  12mo.  Philadelphia  :  Carey,  Lea,  and  Carey. 


irving’s  conquest  of  granada.  89 

and  maintain  an  unflagging  interest,  and  diffusing 
over  the  whole  that  finished  style,  without  which 
his  work  will  only  become  a  magazine  of  materials 
for  the  more  elegant  edifices  of  subsequent  writers. 
He  must  be — in  short,  there  is  no  end  to  what  a 
perfect  historian  must  be  and  do.  It  is  hardly  ne¬ 
cessary  to  add  that  such  a  monster  never  did  and 
never  will  exist. 

But,  although  we  cannot  attain  to  perfect  excel¬ 
lence  in  this  or  any  other  science  in  this  world,  con¬ 
siderable  approaches  have  been  made  to  it,  and  dif¬ 
ferent  individuals  have  arisen  at  different  periods, 
possessed,  in  an  eminent  degree,  of  some  of  the  prin¬ 
cipal  qualities  which  go  to  make  up  the  aggregate 
of  the  character  we  have  been  describing.  The 
peculiar  character  of  these  qualities  will  generally 
be  determined  in  the  writer  by  that  of  the  age  in 
which  he  lives.  Thus,  the  earlier  historians  of 
Greece  and  Rome  sought  less  to  instruct  than  to 
amuse.  They  filled  their  pictures  with  dazzling 
and  seductive  images.  In  their  researches  into  an¬ 
tiquity,  they  were  not  startled  by  the  marvellous, 
like  the  more  prudish  critics  of  our  day,  but  wel¬ 
comed  it  as  likely  to  stir  the  imaginations  of  their 
readers.  They  seldom  interrupted  the  story  by  im¬ 
pertinent  reflection.  They  bestowed  infinite  pains 
on  the  costume,  the  style  of  their  history,  and,  in 
fine,  made  everything  subordinate  to  the  main  pur¬ 
pose  of  conveying  an  elegant  and  interesting  narra¬ 
tive.  Such  was  Herodotus,  such  Livy,  and  such, 
too,  the  earlier  chroniclers  of  modern  Europe,  whose 

M 


90  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

pages  glow  with  the  picturesque  and  brilliant  pa¬ 
geants  of  an  age  of  chivalry.  These  last,  as  well 
as  Herodotus,  may  be  said  to  have  written  in  the 
infancy  of  their  nations,  when  the  imagination  is 
more  willingly  addressed  than  the  understanding. 
Livy,  who  wrote  in  a  riper  age,  lived,  nevertheless, 
in  a  court  and  a  period  where  tranquillity  and  opu¬ 
lence  disposed  the  minds  of  men  to  elegant  recrea¬ 
tion  rather  than  to  severe  discipline  and  exertion. 

As,  however,  the  nation  advanced  in  years,  or  be¬ 
came  oppressed  with  calamity,  history  also  assumed 
a  graver  complexion.  Fancy  gave  way  to  reflec¬ 
tion.  The  mind,  no  longer  invited  to  rove  abroad 
in  quest  of  elegant  and  alluring  pictures,  was  driven 
back  upon  itself,  speculated  more  deeply,  and  sought 
for  support  under  the  external  evils  of  life  in  mor¬ 
al  and  philosophical  truth.  Description  was  aban¬ 
doned  for  the  study  of  character;  men  took  the 
place  of  events ;  and  the  romance  was  converted 
into  the  drama.  Thus  it  was  with  Tacitus,  who 
lived  under  those  imperial  monsters  who  turned 
Rome  into  a  charnel-house,  and  his  compact  nar¬ 
ratives  are  filled  with  moral  and  political  axioms 
sufficiently  numerous  to  make  a  volume;  and,  in¬ 
deed,  Brotier  has  made  one  of  them  in  his  edition 
of  the  historian.  The  same  philosophical  spirit  an¬ 
imates  the  page  of  Thucydides,  himself  one  of  the 
principal  actors  in  the  long,  disastrous  struggle  that 
terminated  in  the  ruin  of  his  nation. 

But,  notwithstanding  the  deeper  and  more  com¬ 
prehensive  thought  of  these  later  writers,  there  was 


irving’s  conquest  of  granada.  91 

still  a  wide  difference  between  the  complexion  giv¬ 
en  to  history  under  their  hands  and  that  which  it 
has  assumed  in  our  time.  We  would  not  be  un¬ 
derstood  as  determining,  but  simply  as  discrimina¬ 
ting  their  relative  merits.  The  Greeks  and  Ro¬ 
mans  lived  when  the  world,  at  least  when  the  mind 
was  in  its  comparative  infancy — when  fancy  and 
feeling  were  most  easily,  and  loved  most  to  be  ex¬ 
cited.  They  possessed  a  finer  sense  of  beauty  than 
the  moderns.  They  were  infinitely  more  solicitous 
about  the  external  dress,  the  finish,  and  all  that 
makes  up  the  poetry  of  a  composition.  Poetry,  in¬ 
deed,  mingled  in  their  daily  pursuits  as  well  as  pleas¬ 
ures;  it  determined  their  gravest  deliberations.  The 
command  of  their  armies  was  given,  not  to  the  best 
general,  but  ofttimes  to  the  most  eloquent  orator. 
Poetry  entered  into  their  religion,  and  created  those 
beautiful  monuments  of  architecture  and  sculpture 
which  the  breath  of  time  has  not  tarnished.  It  en¬ 
tered  into  their  philosophy;  and  no  one  confessed  its 
influence  more  deeply  than  he  who  would  have  ban¬ 
ished  it  from  his  republic.  It  informed  the  souls  of 
their  orators,  and  prompted  those  magnificent  rhap¬ 
sodies  which  fall  lifeless  enough  from  the  stammer¬ 
ing  tongue  of  the  schoolboy,  but  which  once  awaked 
to  ecstasy  the  living  populace  of  Athens.  It  enter¬ 
ed  deeply  even  into  their  latest  history.  It  was  first 
exhibited  in  the  national  chronicles  of  Homer.  It 
lost  little  of  its  colouring,  though  it  conformed  to 
the  general  laws  of  prosaic  composition,  under  He¬ 
rodotus.  And  it  shed  a  pleasing  grace  over  the  so- 


92  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ber  pages  of  Thucydides  and  Xenophon.  The 
muse,  indeed,  was  stripped  of  her  wings.  She  no 
longer  made  her  airy  excursions  into  the  fairy  re¬ 
gions  of  romance  ;  but,  as  she  moved  along  the 
earth,  the  sweetest  wild-flowers  seemed  to  spring 
up  unbidden  at  her  feet.  We  would  not  be  under¬ 
stood  as  implying  that  Grecian  history  was  ambi¬ 
tious  of  florid  or  meretricious  ornament.  Nothing 
could  be  more  simple  than  its  general  plan  and  ex¬ 
ecution  ;  far  too  simple,  we  fear,  for  imitation  in 
our  day.  Thus  Thucydides,  for  example,  distrib¬ 
utes  his  events  most  inartificially,  according  to  the 
regular  revolutions  of  the  seasons ;  and  the  rear  of 
every  section  is  brought  up  with  the  same  eternal 
repetion  of  srog  tg>  nohe/MD  ereXevra  rcbde,  ov  QovKvdldrjg 
gweypaxpe.  But  in  the  fictitious  speeches  with  which 
he  has  illumined  his  narrative,  he  has  left  the  choi¬ 
cest  specimens  of  Attic  eloquence  ;  and  he  elabora¬ 
ted  his  general  diction  into  so  high  a  finish,  that 
Demosthenes,  as  is  well  known,  in  the  hope  of 
catching  some  of  his  rhetorical  graces,  thought  him 
worthy  of  being  thrice  transcribed  with  his  own 
hand. 

Far  different  has  been  the  general  conception,  as 
well  as  execution,  of  history  by  the  moderns.  In 
this,  however,  it  was  accommodated  to  the  exigen¬ 
cies  of  their  situation,  and,  as  with  the  ancients, 
still  reflected  the  spirit  of  the  age.  If  the  Greeks 
lived  in  the  infancy  of  civilization,  the  contempo¬ 
raries  of  our  day  may  be  said  to  have  reached  its 
prime.  The  same  revolution  has  taken  place  as  in 


irving’s  conquest  of  granada. 


93 


the  growth  of  an  individual.  The  vivacity  of  the 
imagination  has  been  blunted,  but  reason  is  matu¬ 
red.  The  credulity  of  youth  has  given  way  to  hab¬ 
its  of  cautious  inquiry,  and  sometimes  to  a  phleg¬ 
matic  skepticism.  The  productions,  indeed,  which 
first  appeared  in  the  doubtful  twilight  of  morning 
exhibited  the  love  of  the  marvellous,  the  light  and 
fanciful  spirit  of  a  green  and  tender  age.  But  a 
new  order  of  things  commenced  as  the  stores  of 
classical  learning  were  unrolled  to  the  eye  of  the 
scholar.  The  mind  seemed  at  once  to  enter  upon 
the  rich  inheritance  which  the  sages  of  antiquity 
had  been  ages  in  accumulating,  and  to  start,  as  it 
were,  from  the  very  point  where  they  had  termina¬ 
ted  their  career.  Thus  raised  by  learning  and  ex¬ 
perience,  it  was  enabled  to  take  a  wider  view  of 
its  proper  destiny — to  understand  that  truth  is  the 
greatest  good,  and  to  discern  the  surest  method  of 
arriving  at  it.  The  Christian  doctrine,  too,  incul¬ 
cated  that  the  end  of  being  was  best  answered  by 
a  life  of  active  usefulness,  and  not  by  one  of  ab¬ 
stract  contemplation,  or  selfish  indulgence,  or  pass¬ 
ive  fortitude,  as  variously  taught  by  the  various 
sects  of  antiquity.  Hence  a  new  standard  of  mor¬ 
al  excellence  was  formed.  Pursuits  were  estima¬ 
ted  by  their  practical  results,  and  the  useful  was 
preferred  to  the  ornamental.  Poetry,  confined  to 
her  own  sphere,  was  no  longer  permitted  to  mingle 
in  the  councils  of  philosophy.  Intellectual  and 
physical  science,  instead  of  floating  on  vague  spec¬ 
ulation,  as  with  the  ancients,  was  established  on 


94  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

careful  induction  and  experiment.  The  orator,  in¬ 
stead  of  adorning  himself  with  the  pomp  and  gar¬ 
niture  of  verse,  sought  only  to  acquire  greater  dex¬ 
terity  in  the  management  of  the  true  weapons  of 
debate.  The  passions  were  less  frequently  assail¬ 
ed,  the  reason  more.  A  wider  field  was  open  to 
the  historian.  He  was  no  longer  to  concoct  his 
narrative,  if  the  scene  lay  in  a  remote  period,  from 
the  superficial  rumours  of  oral  tradition.  Libra¬ 
ries  were  to  be  ransacked ;  medals  and  monuments 
to  be  studied;  obsolete  manuscripts  to  be  decipher¬ 
ed.  Every  assertion  was  to  be  fortified  by  an  au¬ 
thority  ;  and  the  opinions  of  others,  instead  of  be¬ 
ing  admitted  on  easy  faith,  were  to  be  carefully  col¬ 
lated,  and  the  balance  of  probability  struck  between 
them.  With  these  qualifications  of  antiquarian  and 
critic,  the  modern  historian  was  to  combine  that  of 
the  philosopher,  deducing  from  his  mass  of  facts 
general  theorems,  and  giving  to  them  their  most 
extended  application. 

By  all  this  process,  poetry  lost  much,  but  philos¬ 
ophy  gained  more.  The  elegant  arts  sensibly  de¬ 
clined,  but  the  most  important  and  recondite  secrets 
of  nature  were  laid  open.  All  those  sciences  which 
have  for  their  object  the  happiness  and  improvement 
of  the  species,  the  science  of  government,  of  politi¬ 
cal  economy,  of  education — ^natural  and  experiment¬ 
al  science — were  carried  far  beyond  the  boundaries 
which  they  could  possibly  have  reached  under  the 
ancient  systems. 

The  peculiar  forms  of  historic  writing,  as  it  ex- 


irving’s  conquest  of  granada. 


95 


ists  with  the  modems,  were  not  fully  developed  un¬ 
til  the  last  century.  It  may  be  well  to  notice  the  in¬ 
termediate  shape  which  it  assumed  before  it  reach¬ 
ed  this  period  in  Spain  and  Italy,  but  especially  this 
latter  country,  in  the  sixteenth  century.  The  Ital¬ 
ian  historians  of  that  age  seemed  to  have  combined 
the  generalizing  and  reflecting  spirit  characteristic 
of  the  moderns,  with  the  simple  and  graceful  forms 
of  composition  which  have  descended  to  us  from 
the  ancients.  Machiavelli,  in  particular,  may  re¬ 
mind  us  of  some  recent  statue  which  exhibits  all 
the  lineaments  and  proportions  of  a  contemporary, 
but  to  which  the  sculptor  has  given  a  sort  of  an¬ 
tique  dignity  by  enveloping  it  in  the  folds  of  the 
Roman  toga.  No  one  of  the  Spanish  historians  is 
to  be  named  with  him.  Mariana,  who  enjoys  among 
them  the  greatest  celebrity,  has,  it  is  true,  given  to 
his  style,  both  in  the  Latin  and  Castilian,  the  ele¬ 
gant  transparency  of  an  ancient  classic,  but  the  mass 
of  detail  is  not  quickened  by  a  single  spark  of  phi¬ 
losophy  or  original  reflection.  Mariana  was  a  monk, 
one  of  a  community  who  have  formed  the  most  co¬ 
pious,  but,  in  many  respects,  the  most  incompetent 
chroniclers  in  the  world,  cut  off,  as  they  are,  from 
all  sympathy  with  any  portion  of  the  species  save 
their  own  order,  and  predisposed  by  education  to 
admit  as  truth  the  grossest  forgeries  of  fanaticism. 
What  can  their  narratives  be  worth,  distorted  thus 
by  prejudice  and  credulity  \  The  Aragonese  wri¬ 
ters,  and  Zurita  in  particular,  though  far  inferior  as 
to  the  literary  execution  of  their  works,  exhibit  a 


96  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

pregnant  thought  and  a  manly  independence  of  ex¬ 
pression  far  superior  to  the  Jesuit  Mariana. 

The  Italian  historians  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
moreover,  had  the  good  fortune  not  only  to  have 
been  eyewitnesses,  but  to  have  played  prominent 
parts  in  the  events  which  they  commemorated. 
And  this  gives  a  vitality  to  their  touches  which  is 
in  vain  to  be  expected  from  those  of  a  closet  poli¬ 
tician.  This  rare  union  of  public  and  private  ex¬ 
cellence  is  delicately  intimated  in  the  inscription 
on  Guicciardini’s  monument,  “ Cujus  negotium ,  an 
otium,  gloriosius  incertum .” 

The  personage  by  whom  the  present  laws  of  his¬ 
toric  composition  may  be  said  to  have  been  first  ar¬ 
ranged  into  a  regular  system  was  Voltaire.  This 
extraordinary  genius,  whose  works  have  been  pro¬ 
ductive  of  so  much  mingled  good  and  evil,  discov¬ 
ers  in  them  many  traces  of  a  humane  and  beneficent 
disposition.  Nowhere  is  his  invective  more  keenly 
directed  than  against  acts  of  cruelty  and  oppres¬ 
sion — above  all,  of  religious  oppression.  He  lived 
in  an  age  of  crying  abuses  both  in  Church  and  gov¬ 
ernment.  Unfortunately,  he  employed  a  weapon 
against  them  whose  influence  is  not  to  be  control¬ 
led  by  the  most  expert  hand.  The  envenomed 
shaft  of  irony  not  only  wounds  the  member  at 
which  it  is  aimed,  but  diffuses  its  poison  to  the 
healthiest  and  remotest  regions  of  the  body. 

The  free  and  volatile  temper  of  Voltaire  forms  a 
singular  contrast  with  his  resolute  pertinacity  of 
purpose.  Bard,  philosopher,  historian,  this  literary 


irving's  conquest  of  granada. 


97 


Proteus  animated  every  shape  with  the  same  mis¬ 
chievous  spirit  of  philosophy.  It  never  deserted 
him,  even  in  the  most  sportive  sallies  of  his  fancy. 
It  seasons  his  romances  equally  with  his  gravest 
pieces  in  the  encyclopedia ;  his  familiar  letters  and 
most  licentious  doggerel  no  less  than  his  histories. 
The  leading  object  of  this  philosophy  may  be  de¬ 
fined  by  the  single  cant  phrase,  “  the  abolition  of 
prejudices.”  But  in  Voltaire  prejudices  were  too 
often  confounded  with  principles. 

In  his  histories,  he  seems  ever  intent  on  exhibit¬ 
ing,  in  the  most  glaring  colours,  the  manifold  incon¬ 
sistencies  of  the  human  race ;  in  showing  the  con¬ 
tradiction  between  profession  and  practice ;  in  con¬ 
trasting  the  magnificence  of  the  apparatus  with  the 
impotence  of  the  results.  The  enormous  abuses  of 
Christianity  are  brought  into  juxtaposition  with  the 
most  meritorious  features  in  other  religions,  and 
thus  all  are  reduced  to  nearly  the  same  level.  The 
credulity  of  one  half  of  mankind  is  set  in  opposition 
to  the  cunning  of  the  other.  The  most  momentous 
events  are  traced  to  the  most  insignificant  causes, 
and  the  ripest  schemes  of  wisdom  are  shown  to 
have  been  baffled  by  the  intervention  of  the  most 
trivial  accidents.  Thus  the  conduct  of  the  world 
seems  to  be  regulated  by  chance ;  the  springs  of 
human  action  are  resolved  into  selfishness  ;  and  re¬ 
ligion,  of  whatever  denomination,  is  only  a  different 
form  of  superstition.  It  is  true  that  his  satire  is 
directed  not  so  much  against  any  particular  system 
as  the  vices  of  that  system  ;  but  the  result  left  upon 

N 


98  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

the  mind  is  not  a  whit  less  pernicious.  His  philo¬ 
sophical  romance  of  “  Candide”  affords  a  good  ex¬ 
emplification  of  his  manner.  The  thesis  of  perfect 
optimism  in  this  world,  at  which  he  levels  this  jeu 
d'esprit,  is  manifestly  indefensible.  But  then  he 
supports  his  position  with  such  an  array  of  gross 
and  hyperbolical  atrocities,  without  the  intervention 
of  a  single  palliative  circumstance,  and,  withal,  in 
such  a  tone  of  keen  derision,  that,  if  any  serious  im¬ 
pression  be  left  on  the  mind,  it  can  be  no  other  than 
that  of  a  baleful,  withering  skepticism.  The  histo¬ 
rian  rarely  so  far  forgets  his  philosophy  as  to  kindle 
into  high  and  generous  emotion  the  glow  of  patri¬ 
otism,  or  moral  and  religious  enthusiasm.  And 
hence,  too,  his  style,  though  always  graceful,  and 
often  seasoned  with  the  sallies  of  a  piquant  wit, 
never  rises  into  eloquence  or  sublimity. 

Voltaire  has  been  frequently  reproached  for  want 
of  historical  accuracy.  But  if  we  make  due  allow¬ 
ance  for  the  sweeping  tenour  of  his  reflections,  and 
for  the  infinite  variety  of  his  topics*  we  shall  be 
slow  in  giving  credit  to  this  charge.*  He  was,  in¬ 
deed,  oftentimes  misled  by  his  inveterate  Pyrrho¬ 
nism  ;  a  defect,  when  carried  to  the  excess  in  which 
he  indulged  it,  almost  equally  fatal  to  the  historian 
with  credulity  or  superstition.  His  researches  fre¬ 
quently  led  him  into  dark,  untravelled  regions ;  but 
the  aliment  which  he  imported  thence  served  only 

*  Indeed,  Hallam  and  Warton — the  one  as  diligent  a  labourer  in  the 
field  of  civil  history  as  the  other  has  been  in  literary—both  bear  testi¬ 
mony  to  his  general  veracity. 


irving’s  conquest  of  granada. 


99 


too  often  to  minister  to  his  pernicious  philosophy. 
He  resembled  the  allegorical  agents  of  Milton,  pa¬ 
ving  a  way  across  the  gulf  of  Chaos  for  the  spirits 
of  mischief  to  enter  more  easily  upon  the  earth. 

Voltaire  effected  a  no  less  sensible  revolution  in 
the  structure  than  in  the  spirit  of  history.  Thus, 
instead  of  following  the  natural  consecutive  order 
of  events,  the  work  was  distributed,  on  the  princi¬ 
ple  of  a  Catalogue  raisonne ,  into  sections  arranged 
according  to  their  subjects,  and  copious  disserta¬ 
tions  were  introduced  into  the  body  of  the  narra¬ 
tive.  Thus,  in  his  Essai  sur  les  Mceurs,  & c.,  one 
chapter  is  devoted  to  letters,  another  to  religion,  a 
third  to  manners,  and  so  on.  And  in  the  same  way, 
in  his  “Age  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth/’  he  has  thrown 
his  various  illustrations  of  the  policy  of  government, 
and  of  the  social  habits  of  the  court,  into  a  detach¬ 
ed  portion  at  the  close  of  the  book. 

This  would  seem  to  be  deviating  from  the  natu¬ 
ral  course  of  things  as  they  occur  in  the  world, 
where  the  multifarious  pursuits  of  pleasure  and  bu¬ 
siness,  the  lights  and  shadows,  as  it  were,  of  life, 
are  daily  intermingled  in  the  motley  panorama  of 
human  existence.  But,  however  artificial  this  di¬ 
vision,  it  enabled  the  reader  to  arrive  more  expedi¬ 
tiously  at  the  results,  for  which  alone  history  is  val¬ 
uable,  while,  at  the  same  time,  it  put  it  in  the  power 
of  the  writer  to  convey  with  more  certainty  and  fa¬ 
cility  his  own  impressions. 

This  system  was  subsequently  so  much  refined 
upon,  that  Montesquieu,  in  his  “Grandeur  et  Deca- 


100  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

dence  des  Romains,”  laid  no  farther  stress  on  his¬ 
torical  facts  than  as  they  furnished  him  with  illus¬ 
trations  of  his  particular  theorems.  Indeed,  so  lit¬ 
tle  did  his  work  rest  upon  the  veracity  of  such  facts, 
that,  although  the  industry  of  Niebuhr,  or,  rather,  of 
Beaufort,  has  knocked  away  almost  all  the  founda¬ 
tions  of  early  Rome,  Montesquieu’s  treatise  remains 
as  essentially  unimpaired  in  credit  as  before.  Thus 
the  materials  which  anciently  formed  the  body  of 
history  now  served  only  as  ingredients  from  which 
its  spirit  was  to  be  extracted.  But  this  was  not  al¬ 
ways  the  spirit  of  truth.  And  the  arbitrary  selection 
as  well  as  disposition  of  incidents  which  this  new 
method  allowed,  and  the  colouring  which  they  were 
to  receive  from  the  author,  made  it  easy  to  pervert 
them  to  the  construction  of  the  wildest  hypotheses. 

The  progress  of  philosophical  history  is  particu¬ 
larly  observable  in  Great  Britain,  where  it  seems  to 
have  been  admirably  suited  to  the  grave,  reflecting 
temper  of  the  people.  In  the  graces  of  narrative 
they  have  ever  been  unequal  to  their  French  neigh¬ 
bours.  Their  ancient  chronicles  are  inferior  in  spirit 
and  execution  to  those  either  of  France  or  Spain; 
and  their  more  elaborate  histories,  down  to  the  mid¬ 
dle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  could  not  in  any  way 
compete  with  the  illustrious  models  of  Italy.  But 
soon  after  this  period  several  writers  appeared,  ex¬ 
hibiting  a  combination  of  qualities,  erudition,  criti¬ 
cal  penetration,  powers  of  generalization,  and  a  po¬ 
litical  sagacity  unrivalled  in  any  other  age  or  coun¬ 
try. 


IRVING'S  CONQUEST  OF  GRANADA.  101 

The  influence  of  the  new  forms  of  historical  com¬ 
position,  however,  was  here,  as  elsewhere,  made  too 
frequently  subservient  to  party  and  sectarian  preju¬ 
dices.  Tory  histories  and  Whig  histories,  Prot¬ 
estant  and  Catholic  histories,  successively  appear¬ 
ed,  and  seemed  to  neutralize  each  other.  The  most 
venerable  traditions  were  exploded  as  nursery  tales. 
The  statues  decreed  by  antiquity  were  cast  down, 
and  the  characters  of  miscreants  whom  the  general 
suffrage  of  mankind  had  damned  to  infamy — of  a 
Dionysius,  a  Borgia,  or  a  Richard  the  Third — were 
now  retraced  by  what  Jovius  distinguishes  as  “  the 
golden  pen”  of  the  historian,  until  the  reader,  bewil¬ 
dered  in  the  maze  of  uncertainty,  is  almost  ready  to 
join  in  the  exclamation  of  Lord  Orford  to  his  son,  “  Oh 
quote  me  not  history,  for  that  I  know  to  be  false !” 
It  is  remarkable,  indeed,  that  the  last-mentioned  mon¬ 
arch,  Richard  the  Third,  whose  name  has  become  a 
byword  of  atrocity,  the  burden  of  the  ballad  and 
the  moral  of  the  drama,  should  have  been  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  elaborate  vindication  by  two  eminent  writers 
of  the  most  opposite  characters,  the  pragmatical  Hor¬ 
ace  Walpole,  and  the  circumspect  and  conscientious 
Sharon  Turner.  The  apology  of  the  latter  exhib¬ 
its  a  technical  precision,  a  severe  scrutiny  into  the 
authenticity  of  records,  and  a  nice  balancing  of  con¬ 
tradictory  testimony,  that  give  it  all  the  air  of  a  legal 
investigation.  Thus  history  seems  to  be  conducted 
on  the  principles  of  a  judicial  process,  in  which  the 
writer,  assuming  the  functions  of  an  advocate,  stu¬ 
diously  suppresses  whatever  may  make  against  his 


f 


102  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

own  side,  supports  himself  by  the  strongest  array  ol 
evidence  which  he  can  muster,  discredits,  as  far  as 
possible,  that  of  the  opposite  party,  and,  by  dexter¬ 
ous  interpretation  and  ingenious  inference,  makes 
out  the  most  plausible  argument  for  his  client  that 
the  case  will  admit. 

But  these,  after  all,  are  only  the  abuses  of  philo¬ 
sophical  history,  and  the  unseasonable  length  of  re¬ 
mark  into  which  we  have  been  unwarily  led  in  re¬ 
spect  to  them  may  give  us  the  appearance  of  laying 
on  them  greater  emphasis  than  they  actually  de¬ 
serve.  There  are  few  writers  in  any  country  whose 
judgment  has  not  been  sometimes  warped  by  per¬ 
sonal  prejudices.  But  it  is  to  the  credit  of  the  prin¬ 
cipal  British  historians  that,  however  they  may  have 
been  occasionally  under  the  influence  of  such  hu¬ 
man  infirmity,  they  have  conducted  their  researches, 
in  the  main,  with  equal  integrity  and  impartiality. 
And  while  they  have  enriched  their  writings  with 
the  stores  of  a  various  erudition,  they  have  digested 
from  these  details  results  of  the  most  enlarged  and 
practical  application.  History  in  their  hands,  al¬ 
though  it  may  have  lost  much  of  the  simplicity  and 
graphic  vivacity  which  it  maintained  with  the  an¬ 
cients,  has  gained  much  more  in  the  amount  of  use¬ 
ful  knowledge  and  the  lessons  of  sound  philosophy 
which  it  inculcates. 

There  is  no  writer  who  exhibits  more  distinctly 
the  full  development  of  the  principles  of  modern 
history,  with  all  its  virtues  and  defects,  than  Gib¬ 
bon.  His  learning  was  fully  equal  to  his  vast  sub- 


irving’s  conquest  of  granaua. 


103 


ject.  This,  commencing  with  expiring  civilization 
in  ancient  Rome,  continues  on  until  the  period  of 
its  final  and  perfect  resurrection  in  Italy  in  the  fif¬ 
teenth  century,  and  thus  may  be  said  to  furnish  the 
lights  which  are  to  guide  us  through  the  long  in¬ 
terval  of  darkness  which  divides  the  Old  from  the 
Modern  world.  The  range  of  his  subject  was  fully 
equal  to  its  duration.  Goths,  Huns,  Tartars,  and 
all  the  rude  tribes  of  the  North,  are  brought  upon 
the  stage,  together  with  the  more  cultivated  natives 
of  the  South,  the  Greeks,  Italians,  and  the  intellect¬ 
ual  Arab;  and,  as  the  scene  shifts  from  one  country 
to  another,  we  behold  its  population  depicted  with 
that  peculiarity  of  physiognomy  and  studied  pro¬ 
priety  of  costume  which  belong  to  dramatic  exhi¬ 
bition  ;  for  Gibbon  was  a  more  vivacious  draughts¬ 
man  than  most  writers  of  his  school.  He  was, 
moreover,  deeply  versed  in  geography,  chronology, 
antiquities,  verbal  criticism — in  short,  in  all  the  sci¬ 
ences  in  any  way  subsidiary  to  his  art.  The  ex¬ 
tent  of  his  subject  permitted  him  to  indulge  in  those 
elaborate  disquisitions  so  congenial  to  the  spirit  of 
modern  history  on  the  most  momentous  and  inter¬ 
esting  topics,  while  his  early  studies  enabled  him  to 
embellish  the  drier  details  of  his  narrative  with  the 
charms  of  a  liberal  and  elegant  scholarship. 

What,  then,  was  wanting  to  this  accomplished 
writer  1  Good  faith.  His  defects  were  precisely 
of  the  class  of  which  we  have  before  been  speak¬ 
ing,  and  his  most  elaborate  efforts  exhibit  too  often 
the  perversion  of  learning  and  ingenuity  to  the  vin- 


104  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

dication  of  preconceived  hypotheses.  He  cannot, 
indeed,  be  convicted  of  ignorance  or  literal  inaccu- 
racy,  as  he  has  triumphantly  proved  in  his  discom¬ 
fiture  of  the  unfortunate  Davis.  But  his  disingen¬ 
uous  mode  of  conducting  the  argument  leads  pre¬ 
cisely  to  the  same  unfair  result.  Thus,  in  his  cel¬ 
ebrated  chapters  on  the  “  Progress  of  Christianity,” 
which  he  tells  us  were  “  reduced  by  three  success¬ 
ive  revisals  from  a  bulky  volume  to  their  present 
size,”  he  has  often  slurred  over  in  the  text  such  par¬ 
ticulars  as  might  reflect  most  credit  on  the  charac¬ 
ter  of  the  religion,  or  shuffled  them  into  a  note  at 
the  bottom  of  the  page,  while  all  that  admits  of  a 
doubtful  complexion  in  its  early  propagation  is  os¬ 
tentatiously  blazoned,  and  set  in  contrast  to  the  most 
amiable  features  of  paganism.  At  the  same  time,  by 
a  style  of  innuendo  that  conveys  “more  than  meets 
the  ear,”  he  has  contrived,  with  Iago-like  duplicity, 
to  breathe  a  taint  of  suspicion  on  the  purity  which  he 
dares  not  openly  assail.  It  would  be  easy  to  furnish 
examples  of  all  this  were  this  the  place  for  them  ; 
but  the  charges  have  no  novelty,  and  have  been 
abundantly  substantiated  by  others. 

It  is  a  consequence  of  this  skepticism  in  Gibbon, 
as  with  Voltaire,  that  his  writings  are  nowhere 
warmed  with  a  generous  moral  sentiment.  The 
most  sublime  of  all  spectacles,  that  of  the  martyr 
who  suffers  for  conscience  sake,  and  this  equally 
whether  his  creed  be  founded  in  truth  or  error,  is 
contemplated  by  the  historian  with  the  smile,  or, 
rather,  sneer  of  philosophic  indifference.  This  is 


irving’s  conquest  of  granada. 


105 


not  only  bad  taste,  as  he  is  addressing  a  Christian 
audience,  but  he  thus  voluntarily  relinquishes  one 
of  the  most  powerful  engines  for  the  movement  of 
human  passion,  which  is  never  so  easily  excited  as 
by  deeds  of  suffering,  self-devoted  heroism. 

But,  although  Gibbon  was  wholly  defective  in 
moral  enthusiasm,  his  style  is  vivified  by  a  certain  ex¬ 
hilarating  glow  that  kindles  a  corresponding  warmth 
in  the  bosom  of  his  reader.  This  may,  perhaps,  be 
traced  to  his  egotism,  or,  to  speak  more  liberally,  to 
an  ardent  attachment  to  his  professional  pursuits, 
and  to  his  inextinguishable  love  of  letters.  This 
enthusiasm  appears  in  almost  every  page  of  his  great 
work,  and  enabled  him  to  triumph  over  all  its  diffi¬ 
culties.  It  is  particularly  conspicuous  whenever 
he  touches  upon  Rome,  the  alma  mater  of  science, 
whose  adopted  son  he  may  be  said  to  have  been 
from  his  earliest  boyhood.  Whenever  he  contem¬ 
plates  her  fallen  fortunes,  he  mourns  over  her  with 
the  fond  solicitude  that  might  become  an  ancient 
Roman  ;  and  when  he  depicts  her  pristine  glories, 
dimly  seen  through  the  mist  of  so  many  centuries, 
he  does  it  with  such  vivid  accuracy  of  conception, 
that  the  reader,  like  the  traveller  who  wanders 
through  the  excavations  of  Pompeii,  seems  to  be 
gazing  on  the  original  forms  and  brilliant  colours 
of  antiquity. 

To  Gibbon’s  egotism — in  its  most  literal  sense, 
to  his  personal  vanity — may  be  traced  some  of  the 
peculiar  defects  for  which  his  style  is  conspicuous. 
The  “historian  of  the  Decline  and  Fall”  too  rarely 

O 


106  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

forgets  his  own  importance  in  that  of  his  subject 
The  consequence  which  he  attaches  to  his  personal 
labours  is  shown  in  a  bloated  dignity  of  expression, 
and  an  ostentation  of  ornament  that  contrast  whim¬ 
sically  enough  with  the  trifling  topics  and  common¬ 
place  thoughts  on  which,  in  the  course  of  his  long 
work,  they  are  occasionally  employed.  He  no¬ 
where  moves  along  with  the  easy  freedom  of  na¬ 
ture,  but  seems  to  leap,  as  it  were,  from  triad  to 
triad  by  a  succession  of  strained,  convulsive  efforts. 
He  affected,  as  he  tells  us,  the  light,  festive  raillery 
of  Voltaire;  but  his  cumbrous  imitation  of  the  mer¬ 
curial  Frenchman  may  remind  one,  to  make  use  of 
a  homely  simile,  of  the  ass  in  jEsop’s  fable,  who 
frisked  upon  his  master  in  imitation  of  the  sportive 
gambols  of  the  spaniel.  The  first  two  octavo  vol¬ 
umes  of  Gibbon’s  history  were  written  in  a  compar¬ 
atively  modest  and  unaffected  manner,  for  lie  was 
then  uncertain  of  the  public  favour ;  and,  indeed, 
his  style  was  exceedingly  commended  by  the  most 
competent  critics  of  that  day,  as  Hume,  Joseph  War- 
ton,  and  others,  as  is  abundantly  shown  in  their  cor¬ 
respondence  ;  but  when  he  had  tasted  the  sweets  of 
popular  applause,  and  had  been  crowned  as  the  his¬ 
torian  of  the  day,  his  increased  consequence  becomes 
at  once  visible  in  the  assumed  stateliness  and  mag¬ 
nificence  of  his  bearing.  But  even  after  this  period, 
whenever  the  subject  is  suited  to  his  style,  and  when 
his  phlegmatic  temper  is  warmed  by  those  generous 
emotions,  of  which,  as  we  have  said,  it  was  some¬ 
times  susceptible,  he  exhibits  his  ideas  in  the  most 


irving’s  conquest  of  granada. 


107 


splendid  and  imposing  forms  of  which  the  English 
language  is  capable. 

The  most  eminent  illustrations  of  the  system  of 
historical  writing,  which  we  have  been  discussing, 
that  have  appeared  in  England  in  the  present  cen¬ 
tury,  are  the  works  of  Mr.  Hallam,  in  which  the 
author,  discarding  most  of  the  circumstances  that 
go  to  make  up  mere  narrative,  endeavours  to  fix  the 
attention  of  the  reader  on  the  more  important  fea¬ 
tures  of  constitutional  polity,  employing  his  wide 
range  of  materials  in  strict  subordination  to  this 
purpose. 

But  while  history  has  thus  been  conducted  on 
nearly  the  same  principles  in  England  for  the  last 
century,  a  new  path  has  been  struck  out  in  France, 
or,  rather,  an  attempt  has  lately  been  made  there  to 
retrace  the  old  one.  M.  de  Barante,  no  less  estima¬ 
ble  as  a  literary  critic  than  as  a  historian,  in  the  pre¬ 
liminary  remarks  to  his  “Histoire  des  Dues  de  Bour¬ 
gogne,”  considers  the  draughts  of  modern  compilers 
as  altogether  wanting  in  the  vivacity  and  freshness 
of  their  originals.  They  tell  the  reader  how  he 
should  feel,  instead  of  making  him  do  so.  They 
give  him  their  own  results,  instead  of  enabling  him, 
by  a  fair  delineation  of  incidents,  to  form  his  own. 
And  while  the  early  chroniclers,  in  spite  of  their  un¬ 
formed  and  obsolete  idiom,  are  still  read  with  delight, 
the  narratives  of  the  former  are  too  often  dry,  lan¬ 
guid,  and  uninteresting.  He  proposes,  therefore,  by 
a  close  adherence  to  his  originals,  to  extract,  as  it 
were,  the  spirit  of  their  works,  without  any  affecta- 


108  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

tion,  however,  of  their  antiquated  phraseology,  and 
to  exhibit  as  vivid  and  veracious  a  portraiture  as 
possible  of  the  times  he  is  delineating,  unbroken  by 
any  discussions  or  reflections  of  his  own.  The  re¬ 
sult  has  been  a  work  in  eleven  octavo  volumes, 
which,  notwithstanding  its  bulk,  has  already  passed 
into  four  editions. 

The  two  last  productions  of  our  countryman,  Mr. 
Irving,  undoubtedly  fall  within  the  class  of  narrative 
history.  To  this  he  seems  peculiarly  suited  by  his 
genius,  his  fine  perception  of  moral  and  natural 
beauty,  his  power  of  discriminating  the  most  deli¬ 
cate  shades  of  character,  and  of  unfolding  a  series 
of  events  so  as  to  maintain  a  lively  interest  in  the 
reader,  and  a  lactea  ubertas  of  expression  which  can 
impart  a  living  eloquence  even  to  the  most  common¬ 
place  sentiments.  Had  the  “  Life  of  Columbus” 
been  written  by  a  historian  of  the  other  school  of 
which  we  have  been  speaking,  he  would  have  en¬ 
larged  with  greater  circumstantiality  on  the  system 
adopted  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  for  the  adminis¬ 
tration  of  their  colonies,  and  for  the  regulation  of 
trade ;  nor  would  he  have  neglected  to  descant  on 
a  topic,  worn  somewhat  threadbare,  it  must  be  own¬ 
ed,  so  momentous  as  the  moral  and  political  conse¬ 
quences  of  the  discovery  of  America;  neither  would 
such  a  writer,  in  an  account  of  the  conquest  of 
Granada,  have  omitted  to  collect  such  particulars 
as  might  throw  light  on  the  genius,  social  institu¬ 
tions,  and  civil  polity  of  the  Spanish  Arabs.  But 
all  these  particulars,  however  pertinent  to  a  philo- 


irving’s  conquest  of  granada.  109 

sophical  history,  would  have  been  entirely  out  of 
keeping  in  Mr.  Irving’s,  and  might  have  produced  a 
disagreeable  discordance  in  the  general  harmony  of 
his  plan. 

Mr.  Irving  has  seldom  selected  a  subject  better 
suited  to  his  peculiar  powers  than  the  conquest  of 
Granada.  Indeed,  it  would  hardly  have  been  pos¬ 
sible  for  one  of  his  warm  sensibilities  to  linger  so 
long  among  the  remains  of  Moorish  magnificence 
with  which  Spain  is  covered,  without  being  inter- 
ested  in  the  fortunes  of  a  people  whose  memory  has 
almost  passed  into  oblivion,  but  who  once  preserved 
the  “  sacred  flame”  when  it  had  become  extinct  in 
every  corner  of  Christendom,  and  whose  influence 
is  still  visible  on  the  intellectual  culture  of  Modern 
Europe.  It  has  been  found  no  easy  matter,  how¬ 
ever,  to  compile  a  satisfactory  and  authentic  account 
of  the  Arabians,  notwithstanding  that  the  number 
of  their  historians,  cited  by  D’Herbelot  and  Casiri, 
would  appear  to  exceed  that  of  any  European  na¬ 
tion.  The  despotic  governments  of  the  East  have 
never  been  found  propitious  to  that  independence 
of  opinion  so  essential  to  historical  composition : 
“ubi  sentire  quae  velis,  et  quae  sentias  dicere  licet.” 
And  their  copious  compilations,  prolific  in  frivolous 
and  barren  detail,  are  too  often  wholly  destitute  of 
the  sap  and  vitality  of  history. 

The  social  and  moral  institutions  of  Arabian 
Spain  experienced  a  considerable  modification  from 
her  long  intercourse  with  the  Europeans,  and  she 
offers  a  nobler  field  of  research  for  the  chronicler 


110  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

than  is  to  be  found  in  any  other  country  of  the 
Moslem.  Notwithstanding  this,  the  Castilian  schol¬ 
ars,  until  of  late,  have  done  little  towards  elucidating 
the  national  antiquities  of  their  Saracen  brethren; 
and  our  most  copious  notices  of  their  political  his¬ 
tory,  until  the  recent  posthumous  publication  of 
Conde,  have  been  drawn  from  the  extracts  which 
M.  Cardonne  translated  from  the  Arabic  Manu¬ 
scripts  in  the  Royal  Library  at  Paris.* 

The  most  interesting  periods  of  the  Saracen  do¬ 
minion  in  Spain  are  that  embraced  by  the  empire 
of  the  Omeyades  of  Cordova,  between  the  years 
755  and  1030,  and  that  of  the  kingdom  of  Granada, 
extending  from  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  to  the 
close  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  intervening  pe¬ 
riod  of  their  existence  in  the  Peninsula  offers  only  a 
spectacle  of  inextricable  anarchy.  The  first  of  those 
periods  was  that  in  which  the  Arabs  attained  their 
meridian  of  opulence  and  power,  and  in  which  their 
general  illumination  affords  a  striking  contrast  with 
the  deep  barbarism  of  the  rest  of  Europe;  but  it 
was  that,  too,  in  which  their  character,  having  been 
but  little  affected  by  contact  with  the  Spaniards,  re¬ 
tained  most  of  its  original  Asiatic  peculiarities.  This 
has  never  been  regarded,  therefore,  by  European 
scholars,  as  a  period  of  greatest  interest  in  their  his- 

*  [Since  this  article  was  written,  the  deficiency  noticed  in  the  text  has 
been  supplied  by  the  translation  into  English  of  Al-Makkarfs  “Moham¬ 
medan  Dynasties,”  with  copious  notes  and  illustrations  by  Don  Pascual 
de  Gayangos,  a  scholar  whose  acute  criticism  has  enabled  him  to  rectify 
many  of  the  errors  of  his  laborious  predecessors,  and  whose  profound 
Oriental  learning  sheds  a  flood  of  light  on  both  the  civil  and  literary  his¬ 
tory  of  the  Spanish  Arabs.] 


irving’s  conquest  of  granada. 


Ill 


tory,  nor  has  it  ever,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  been 
selected  for  the  purposes  of  romantic  fiction.  But 
when  their  territories  became  reduced  within  the 
limits  of  Granada,  the  Moors  had  insensibly  submit¬ 
ted  to  the  superior  influences  of  their  Christian 
neighbours.  Their  story,  at  this  time,  abounds  in 
passages  of  uncommon  beauty  and  interest.  Their 
wars  were  marked  by  feats  of  personal  prowess  and 
romantic  adventure,  while  the  intervals  of  peace 
were  abandoned  to  all  the  license  of  luxurious  rev¬ 
elry.  Their  character,  therefore,  blending  the  va¬ 
rious  peculiarities  of  Oriental  and  European  civili¬ 
zation,  offers  a  rich  study  for  the  poet  and  the  nov¬ 
elist.  As  such,  it  has  been  liberally  employed  by 
the  Spaniards,  and  has  not  been  altogether  neglect¬ 
ed  by  the  writers  of  other  nations.  Thus  Florian, 
whose  sentiments,  as  well  as  his  style,  seem  to  be 
always  floundering  midway  between  the  regions  of 
prose  and  poetry,  has  made  out  of  the  story  of  this 
people  his  popular  romance  of  “  Gonsalvo  of  Cor¬ 
dova.”  It  also  forms  the  burden  of  an  Italian  epic, 
entitled  “  II  Conquista  di  Granata,”  by  Girolamo 
Gratiani,  a  Florentine — much  lauded  by  his  coun¬ 
trymen.  The  ground,  however,  before  the  appear¬ 
ance  of  Mr.  Irving,  had  not  been  occupied  by  any 
writer  of  eminence  in  the  English  language  for  the 
purposes  either  of  romance  or  history. 

The  conquest  of  Granada,  to  which  Mr.  Irving 
has  confined  himself,  so  disastrous  to  the  Moors, 
was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  achievements  in  the 
most  brilliant  period  of  Spanish  history.  Nothing  is 


112  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

more  usual  than  overweening  commendations  of 
antiquity ;  the  “  good  old  times,”  whose  harsher  fea¬ 
tures,  like  those  of  a  rugged  landscape,  lose  all  their 
asperity  in  the  distance.  But  the  period  of  which 
we  are  speaking,  embracing  the  reigns  of  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella,  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  and  begin¬ 
ning  of  the  sixteenth  centuries,  was  undoubtedly 
that  in  which  the  Spanish  nation  displayed  the  ful¬ 
ness  of  its  moral  and  physical  energies,  when,  esca¬ 
ping  from  the  license  of  a  youthful  age,  it  seems  to 
have  reached  the  prime  of  manhood  and  the  perfect 
development  of  those  faculties,  whose  overstrained 
exertions  were  soon  to  be  followed  by  exhaustion 
and  premature  decrepitude. 

The  remnant  of  Spaniards,  who,  retreating  to  the 
mountains  of  the  north,  escaped  the  overwhelming 
inundation  of  the  Saracens  at  the  beginning  of  the 
eighth  century,  continued  to  cherish  the  free  insti¬ 
tutions  of  their  Gothic  ancestors.  The  “Fuero 
Juzgo,”  the  ancient  Visi-Gothic  code,  was  still  re¬ 
tained  by  the  people  of  Castile  and  Leon,  and  may 
be  said  to  form  the  basis  of  all  their  subsequent  le¬ 
gislation,  while  in  Aragon  the  dissolution  of  the 
primitive  monarchy  opened  the  way  for  even  more 
liberal  and  equitable  forms  of  government.  The  in¬ 
dependence  of  character  thus  fostered  by  the  pecu¬ 
liar  constitutions  of  these  petty  states,  was  still  far¬ 
ther  promoted  by  the  circumstances  of  their  situ¬ 
ation.  Their  uninterrupted  wars  with  the  infidel — 
the  necessity  of  winning  back  from  him,  inch  by 
inch,  as  it  were,  the  conquered  soil — required  the 


irving’s  conquest  of  granada. 


113 


active  co-operation  of  every  class  of  the  communi- 
tv,  and  gave  to  the  mass  of  the  people  an  intrepidi¬ 
ty,  a  personal  consequence,  and  an  extent  of  immu¬ 
nities,  such  as  were  not  enjoyed  by  them  in  any 
other  country  of  Europe.  The  free  cities  acquired 
considerable  tracts  of  the  reconquered  territory, 
with  rights  of  jurisdiction  over  them,  and  sent  their 
representatives  to  Cortes,  near  a  century  before  a 
similar  privilege  was  conceded  to  them  in  England. 
Even  the  peasantry,  so  degraded,  at  this  period, 
throughout  the  rest  of  Europe,  assumed  under  this 
state  of  things  a  conscious  dignity  and  importance, 
which  are  visible  in  their  manners  at  this  day ;  and 
it  was  in  this  class,  during  the  late  French  inva¬ 
sions,  that  the  fire  of  ancient  patriotism  revived  with 
greatest  force,  when  it  seemed  almost  extinct  in  the 
breasts  of  the  degenerate  nobles. 

The  religious  feeling  which  mingled  in  their  wars 
with  the  infidels,  gave  to  their  characters  a  tinge  of 
lofty  enthusiasm  ;  and  the  irregular  nature  of  this 
warfare  suggested  abundant  topics  for  that  popular 
minstrelsy  which  acts  so  powerfully  on  the  passions 
of  a  people.  The  “  Poem  of  the  Cid,”  wThich  ap¬ 
peared,  according  to  Sanchez,  before  the  middle  of 
the  twelfth  century,  contributed,  in  no  slight  degree, 
by  calling  up  the  most  inspiring  national  recollec 
tions,  to  keep  alive  the  generous  glow  of  patriotism. 
This  influence  is  not  imaginary.  Heeren  pronoun¬ 
ces  the  “  poems  of  Homer  to  have  been  the  princi¬ 
pal  bond  wThich  united  the  Grecian  states and 
every  one  knows  the  influence  exercised  over  the 

P 


1]4  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

Scottish  peasantry  by  the  Border  minstrelsy.  Many 
anecdotes  might  be  quoted  to  show  the  veneration 
universally  entertained  by  the  Spaniards,  broken,  as 
they  were,  into  as  many  discordant  states  as  ever 
swarmed  over  Greece,  for  their  favourite  hero  of  ro¬ 
mance  and  history.  Among  others,  Mariana  relates 
one  of  a  king  of  Navarre,  who,  making  an  incursion 
into  Castile  about  a  century  after  the  warriors 
death,  was  carrying  off  a  rich  booty,  when  he  was 
met  by  an  abbot  of  a  neighbouring  convent,  with 
his  monks,  bearing  aloft  the  standard  of  the  Cid, 
who  implored  him  to  restore  the  plunder  to  the  in¬ 
habitants  from  whom  he  had  ravished  it.  And  the 
monarch,  moved  by  the  sight  of  the  sacred  relic, 
after  complying  with  his  request,  escorted  back  the 
banner  in  solemn  procession  with  his  whole  army 
to  the  place  of  its  deposite. 

But,  while  all  these  circumstances  conspired  to 
give  an  uncommon  elevation  to  the  character  of  the 
ancient  Spaniard,  even  of  the  humblest  rank,  and 
while  the  prerogative  of  the  monarch  was  more  pre¬ 
cisely  as  well  as  narrowly  defined,  than  in  most  of 
the  other  nations  of  Christendom,  the  aristocracy  of 
the  country  was  insensibly  extending  its  privileges, 
and  laying  the  foundation  of  a  power  that  eventu¬ 
ally  overshadowed  the  throne,  and  wellnigh  sub¬ 
verted  the  liberties  of  the  state.  In  addition  to  the 
usual  enormous  immunities  claimed  by  this  order  in 
feudal  governments  (although  there  is  no  reason  to 
believe  that  the  system  of  feudal  tenure  obtained  in 
Castile,  as  it  certainly  did  in  Aragon),  they  enjoyed 


irving’s  conquest  of  granada.  115 

s 

a  constitutional  privilege  of  withdrawing  their  alle¬ 
giance  from  their  sovereign  on  sending  him  a  formal 
notice  of  such  renunciation,  and  the  sovereign,  on 
his  part,  was  obliged  to  provide  for  the  security  of 
their  estates  and  families  so  long  as  they  might 
choose  to  continue  in  such  overt  rebellion.  These 
anarchical  provisions  in  their  Constitution  did  not 
remain  a  dead  letter,  and  repeated  examples  of  their 
pernicious  application  are  enumerated  both  by  the 
historians  of  Aragon  and  Castile.  The  long  minor¬ 
ities  with  which  the  latter  country  was  afflicted, 
moreover,  contributed  still  farther  to  swell  the  over¬ 
grown  power  of  the  privileged  orders ;  and  the  vio¬ 
lent  revolution  which,  in  1368,  placed  the  house  of 
Trastamarre  upon  the  throne,  by  impairing  the  rev¬ 
enues,  and  consequently  the  authority  of  the  crown, 
opened  the  way  for  the  wild  uproar  which  reigned 
throughout  the  kingdom  during  the  succeeding  cen¬ 
tury.  Alonso  de  Palencia,  a  contemporary  chron¬ 
icler,  dwells  with  melancholy  minuteness  on  the 
calamities  of  this  unhappy  period,  when  the  whole 
country  was  split  into  factions  of  the  nobles,  the 
monarch  openly  contemned,  the  commons  trodden 
in  the  dust,  the  court  become  a  brothel,  the  treasury 
bankrupt,  public  faith  a  jest,  and  private  morals  too 
loose  and  audacious  to  court  even  the  veil  of  hy¬ 
pocrisy. 

The  wise  administration  of  Ferdinand  and  Isa¬ 
bella  could  alone  have  saved  the  state  in  this  hour 
of  peril.  It  effected,  indeed,  a  change  on  the  face 
of  things  as  magical  as  that  produced  by  the  wand 


116  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

of  an  enchanter  in  some  Eastern  tale.  Their  reign 
wears  a  more  glorious  aspect  from  its  contrast  with 
the  turbulent  period  which  preceded  it,  as  the  land¬ 
scape  glows  with  redoubled  brilliancy  when  the  sun¬ 
shine  has  scattered  the  tempest  We  shall  briefly 
notice  some  of  the  features  of  the  policy  by  which 
they  effected  this  change. 

They  obtained  from  the  Cortes  an  act  for  the  re¬ 
sumption  of  the  improvident  grants  made  by  their 
predecessor,  by  which  means  an  immense  accession 
of  revenue,  which  had  been  squandered  upon  un 
worthy  favourites,  was  brought  back  to  the  royal 
treasury.  They  compelled  many  of  the  nobility  to 
resign,  in  favour  of  the  crown,  such  of  its  posses¬ 
sions  as  they  had  acquired  by  force,  fraud,  or  in¬ 
trigue,  during  the  late  season  of  anarchy.  The  son 
of  that  gallant  Marquis  Duke  of  Cadiz,  for  instance, 
with  whom  the  reader  has  become  so  familiar  in 
Mr.  Irving’s  Chronicle,  was  stripped  of  his  patri¬ 
mony  of  Cadiz,  and  compelled  to  exchange  it  for 
the  humbler  territory  of  Arcos,  from  whence  the 
family  henceforth  derived  their  title.  By  all  these 
expedients,  the  revenues  of  the  state,  at  the  demise 
of  Isabella,  were  increased  twelvefold  beyond  what 
they  had  been  at  the  time  of  her  accession.  They 
reorganized  the  ancient  institution  of  the  “  Herman- 
dad” — a  very  different  association,  under  their  hands, 
from  the  “  Holy  Brotherhood”  which  we  meet  with 
in  Gil  Bias.  Every  hundred  householders  were 
obliged  to  equip  and  maintain  a  horseman  at  theii 
joint  expense;  and  this  corps  furnished  a  vigilant 


irving’s  conquest  of  granada. 


117 


police  in  civil  emergencies,  and  an  effectual  aid  in 
war.  It  was  found,  moreover,  of  especial  service  in 
suppressing  the  insurrections  and  disorders  of  the 
nobility.  They  were  particularly  solicitous  to  abol¬ 
ish  the  right  and  usage  of  private  war,  claimed  by 
this  haughty  order,  compelling  them,  on  all  occa¬ 
sions,  to  refer  their  disputes  to  the  constituted  tri¬ 
bunals  of  justice.  But  it  was  a  capital  feature  in  the 
policy  of  the  Catholic  sovereigns  to  counterbalance 
the  authority  of  the  aristocracy  by  exalting,  as  far 
as  prudent,  that  of  the  commons.  In  the  various 
convocations  of  the  national  Legislature,  or  Cortes, 
in  this  reign,  no  instance  occurs  of  any  city  having 
lost  its  prescriptive  right  of  furnishing  representa¬ 
tives,  as  had  frequently  happened  under  preceding 
monarchs,  who,  from  negligence  or  policy,  had  omit¬ 
ted  to  summon  them. 

But  it  would  be  tedious  to  go  into  all  the  details 
of  the  system  employed  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
for  the  regeneration  of  the  decayed  fabric  of  govern¬ 
ment  ;  of  their  wholesome  regulations  for  the  en¬ 
couragement  of  industry  ;  of  their  organization  of  a 
national  militia  and  an  efficient  marine ;  of  the  se¬ 
vere  decorum  which  they  introduced  within  the 
corrupt  precincts  of  the  court;  of  the  temporary 
economy  by  which  they  controlled  the  public  ex¬ 
penditures,  and  of  the  munificent  patronage  which 
they,  or,  rather,  their  almoner  on  this  occasion,  that 
most  enlightened  of  bigots,  Cardinal  Ximenes,  dis¬ 
pensed  to  science  and  letters.  In  short,  their  saga¬ 
cious  provisions  were  not  merely  remedial  of  former 


118  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

abuses,  but  were  intended  to  call  forth  all  the  latent 
energies  of  the  Spanish  character,  and,  with  these 
excellent  materials,  to  erect  a  constitution  of  gov¬ 
ernment  which  should  secure  to  the  nation  tran¬ 
quillity  at  home,  and  enable  it  to  go  forward  in  its 
ambitious  career  of  discovery  and  conquest. 

The  results  were  certainly  equal  to  the  wisdom 
of  the  preparations.  The  first  of  the  series  of  brill¬ 
iant  enterprises  was  the  conquest  of  the  Moorish 
kingdom  of  Granada — those  rich  and  lovely  regions 
of  the  Peninsula,  the  last  retreat  of  the  infidel,  and 
which  he  had  held  for  nearly  eight  centuries.  This, 
together  with  the  subsequent  occupation  of  Navarre 
by  the  crafty  Ferdinand,  consolidated  the  various 
principalities  of  Spain  into  one  monarchy,  and,  by 
extending  its  boundaries  in  the  Peninsula  to  their 
present  dimensions,  raised  it  from  a  subordinate  sit¬ 
uation  to  the  first  class  of  European  powers.  The 
Italian  wars,  under  the  conduct  of  the  “  Great  Cap¬ 
tain,”  secured  to  Spain  the  more  specious,  but  less 
useful  acquisition  of  Naples,  and  formed  that  invin¬ 
cible  infantry  which  enabled  Charles  the  Fifth  to 
dictate  laws  to  Europe  for  nearly  half  a  century. 
And,  lastly,  as  if  the  Old  World  could  not  afford  a 
theatre  sufficiently  vast  for  their  ambition,  Colum¬ 
bus  gave  a  New  World  to  Castile  and  Leon. 

Such  was  the  attitude  assumed  by  the  nation  un¬ 
der  the  Catholic  kings,  as  they  were  called.  It  was 
the  season  of  hope  and  youthful  enterprise,  when 
the  nation  seemed  to  be  renewing  its  ancient  ener- 
gies,  and  to  prepare  like  a  giant  to  run  its  course. 


irving’s  conquest  of  granada. 


119 


The  modern  Spaniard  who  casts  his  eye  over  the 
long  interval  that  has  since  elapsed,  during  the  first 
half  of  which  the  nation  seemed  to  waste  itself  on 
schemes  of  mad  ambition  or  fierce  fanaticism,  and, 
in  the  latter  half  to  sink  into  a  state  of  paralytic 
torpor — the  Spaniard,  we  say,  who  casts  a  melan¬ 
choly  glance  over  this  dreary  interval,  will  turn  with 
satisfaction  to  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century  as 
the  most  glorious  epoch  in  the  annals  of  his  coun¬ 
try.  This  is  the  period  to  which  Mr.  Irving  has 
introduced  us  in  his  late  work.  And  if  his  portrai¬ 
ture  of  the  Castilian  of  that  day  wears  somewhat  of 
a  romantic,  and,  it  may  be,  incredible  aspect  to 
those  who  contrast  it  with  the  present,  they  must 
remember  that  he  is  only  reviving  the  tints  which 
had  faded  on  the  canvass  of  history.  But  it  is  time 
that  wre  should  return  from  this  long  digression,  into 
which  we  have  been  led  by  the  desire  of  exhibiting 
in  stronger  relief  some  peculiarities  in  the  situation 
and  spirit  of  the  nation  at  the  period  from  which 
Mr.  Irving  has  selected  the  materials  of  his  last,  in¬ 
deed,  his  last  two  publications. 

Our  author,  in  his  “  Chronicle  of  Granada,”  has 
been  but  slightly  indebted  to  Arabic  authorities. 
Neither  Conde  nor  Cardonne  has  expended  more 
than  fifty  or  sixty  pages  on  this  humiliating  topic, 
but  ample  amends  have  been  offered  in  the  copious 
prolixity  of  the  Castilian  writers.  The  Spaniards 
can  boast  a  succession  of  chronicles  from  the  period 
of  the  great  Saracen  invasion.  Those  of  a  more 
early  date,  compiled  in  rude  Latin,  are  sufficiently 


120  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

meager  and  unsatisfactory ;  but  from  the  middle  ol 
the  thirteenth  century  the  stream  of  history  runs  full 
and  clear,  and  their  chronicles,  composed  in  the 
vernacular,  exhibit  a  richness  and  picturesque  vari¬ 
ety  of  incident  that  gave  them  inestimable  value  as 
a  body  of  genuine  historical  documents.  The  reigns 
of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  were  particularly  fruitful 
in  these  sources  of  information.  History  then,  like 
most  of  the  other  departments  of  literature,  seemed 
to  be  in  a  state  of  transition,  when  the  fashions  of 
its  more  antiquated  costume  began  to  mingle  insen¬ 
sibly  with  the  peculiarities  of  the  modern  ;  when,  in 
short,  the  garrulous  graces  of  narration  were  begin¬ 
ning  to  be  tempered  by  the  tone  of  grave  and  philo¬ 
sophical  reflection. 

We  will  briefly  notice  a  few  of  the  eminent  sour¬ 
ces  from  which  Mr.  Irving  has  drawn  his  account  of 
the  “Conquest  of  Granada.”  The  first  of  these  is 
the  Epistles  of  Peter  Martyr,  an  Italian  savant ,  who, 
having  passed  over  with  the  Spanish  ambassador 
into  Spain,  and  being  introduced  into  the  court  of 
Isabella,  was  employed  by  her  in  some  important 
embassies.  He  was  personally  present  at  several 
campaigns  of  this  war.  In  his  “  Letters”  he  occa¬ 
sionally  smiles  at  the  caprice  which  had  led  him  to 
exchange  the  pen  for  the  sword,  while  his  specula¬ 
tions  on  the  events  passing  before  him,  being  those 
of  a  scholar  rather  than  of  a  soldier,  afford  in  their 
moral  complexion  a  pleasing  contrast  to  the  dreary 
details  of  blood  and  battle.  Another  authority  is 
the  Chronicle  of  Bernaldez,  a  worthy  ecclesiastic  of 


Irving's  conquest  of  granada. 


121 


that  period,  whose  bulky  manuscript,  like  that  of 
many  a  better  writer,  lies  still  ingulfed  in  the  dust 
of  some  Spanish  library,  having  never  been  admit¬ 
ted  to  the  honours  of  the  press.  Copies  of  it,  how¬ 
ever,  are  freely  circulated.  It  is  one  of  those  good- 
natured,  gossiping  memorials  of  an  antique  age, 
abounding  equally  in  curious  and  commonplace  in¬ 
cident,  told  in  a  way  sufficiently  prolix,  but  not 
without  considerable  interest.  The  testimony  of 
this  writer  is  of  particular  value,  moreover,  on  this 
occasion,  from  the  proximity  of  his  residence  in  An¬ 
dalusia  to  those  scenes  which  were  the  seat  of  the 
war.  His  style  overflows  with  that  religious  loyalty  . 
with  which  Mr.  Irving  has  liberally  seasoned  the 
effusions  of  Fra  Antonio  Agapida.  Hernando  del 
Pulgar,  another  contemporary  historian,  was  the 
secretary  and  counsellor  of  their  Catholic  majesties, 
and  appointed  by  them  to  the  post  of  national  chron¬ 
icler,  an  office  familiar  both  to  the  courts  of  Castile 
and  Aragon,  in  which  latter  country,  especially,  it 
has  been  occupied  by  some  of  its  most  distinguished 
historians.  Pulgar’s  long  residence  at  court,  his 
practical  acquaintance  with  affairs,  and,  above  all, 
the  access  which  he  obtained,  by  means  of  his  offi¬ 
cial  station,  to  the  best  sources  of  information,  have 
enabled  him  to  make  his  work  a  rich  repository  of 
facts  relating  to  the  general  resources  of  government, 
the  policy  of  its  administration,  and,  more  particu¬ 
larly,  the  conduct  of  the  military  operations  in  the 
closing  war  of  Granada,  of  which  he  was  himself  an 
eyewitness.  In  addition  to  these  writers,  this  period 

a 


122  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

has  been  illumined  by  the  labours  of  the  most  cele¬ 
brated  historians  of  Castile  and  Aragon,  Mariana 
and  Zurita,  both  of  whom  conclude  their  narratives 
with  it,  the  last  expanding  the  biography  of  Ferdi¬ 
nand  alone  into  two  volumes  folio.  Besides  these, 
Mr.  Irving  has  derived  collateral  lights  from  many 
sources  of  inferior  celebrity,  but  not  less  unsuspicious 
credit.  So  that,  in  conclusion,  notwithstanding  a 
certain  dramatic  colouring  which  Fra  Agapida’s 
“  Chronicle”  occasionally  wears,  and  notwithstand¬ 
ing  the  romantic  forms  of  a  style  which,  to  borrow 
the  language  of  Cicero,  seems  “  to  flow,  as  it  were, 
from  the  very  lips  of  the  Muses,”  we  may  honestly 
recommend  it  as  substantially  an  authentic  record 
of  one  of  the  most  interesting,  and,  as  far  as  English 
scholars  are  concerned,  one  of  the  most  untravelled 
portions  of  Spanish  history. 


CERVANTES. 


123 


CERVANTES.* 

July,  1837. 

The  publication,  in  this  country,  of  an  important 
Spanish  classic  in  the  original,  with  a  valuable  com¬ 
mentary,  is  an  event  of  some  moment  in  our  literary 
annals,  and  indicates  a  familiarity,  rapidly  increas¬ 
ing,  with  the  beautiful  literature  to  which  it  belongs. 
It  may  be  received  as  an  omen  favourable  to  the 
cause  of  modern  literature  in  general,  the  study  of 
which,  in  all  its  varieties,  may  be  urged  on  substan¬ 
tially  the  same  grounds.  The  growing  importance 
attached  to  this  branch  of  education  is  visible  in 
other  countries  quite  as  much  as  in  our  own.  It  is 
the  natural,  or,  rather,  necessary  result  of  the  chan¬ 
ges  which  have  taken  place  in  the  social  relations 
of  man  in  this  revolutionary  age.  Formerly,  a  na¬ 
tion,  pent  up  within  its  own  barriers,  knew  less  of 
its  neighbours  than  we  now  know  of  what  is  going 
on  in  Siam  or  Japan.  A  river,  a  chain  of  mount¬ 
ains,  an  imaginary  line,  even,  parted  them  as  far 
asunder  as  if  oceans  had  rolled  between.  To  speak 
correctly,  it  was  their  imperfect  civilization,  their 

*  “  El  Ingenioso  Hidalgo  Don  Quijote  de  la  Mancha ,  compuesto  por  Mi¬ 
guel  de  Cervantes  Saavedra.  Nueva  Edicion  Clasica,  illustrada  coil 
Notas  Historicas,  Grammaticales  y  Crfticas,  por  la  Academia  Espanola, 

sus  Individuos  de  Numero  Pellicer,  Arrieta,  y  Clemencin.  Emmendada 

/ 

y  corregida  por  Francisco  Sales,  A.M.,  Instructor  de  Frances  y  Espanol 
en  la  Universidad  de  Harvard,  en  Cambrigia,  Estado  de  Massachusetts, 
Norte  America,”  2  vols.  12mo,  Boston,  1836. 


124  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ignorance  of  the  means  and  the  subjects  of  commu¬ 
nication,  which  thus  kept  them  asunder.  Now,  on 
the  contrary,  a  change  in  the  domestic  institutions 
of  one  country  can  hardly  be  effected  without  a 
corresponding  agitation  in  those  of  its  neighbours. 
A  treaty  of  alliance  can  scarcely  be  adjusted  with¬ 
out  the  intervention  of  a  general  Congress.  The 
sword  cannot  be  unsheathed  in  one  part  of  Chris¬ 
tendom  without  thousands  leaping  from  their  scab¬ 
bards  in  every  other.  The  whole  system  is  bound 
together  by  as  nice  sympathies  as  if  animated  by  a 
common  pulse,  and  the  remotest  countries  of  Eu¬ 
rope  are  brought  into  contiguity  as  intimate  as  were 
in  ancient  times  the  provinces  of  a  single  monarchy. 

This  intimate  association  has  been  prodigiously 
increased  of  late  years  by  the  unprecedented  dis¬ 
coveries  which  science  has  made  for  facilitating  in¬ 
tercommunication.  The  inhabitant  of  Great  Brit¬ 
ain,  that  “ultima  Thule”  of  the  ancients,  can  now 
run  down  to  the  extremity  of  Italy  in  less  time  than 
it  took  Horace  to  go  from  Rome  to  Brundusium. 
A  steamboat  of  fashionable  tourists  will  touch  at  all 
the  places  of  note  in  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  in  fewer 
weeks  than  it  would  have  cost  years  to  an  ancient 
Argonaut,  or  a  crusader  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Ev¬ 
ery  one,  of  course,  travels,  and  almost  every  capital 
and  noted  watering-place  on  the  Continent  swarms 
with  its  thousands,  and  Paris  with  its  tens  of  thou¬ 
sands  of  itinerant  Cockneys,  many  of  whom,  per¬ 
haps,  have  not  wandered  beyond  the  sound  of  Bow 
bells  in  their  own  little  island. 


CERVANTES. 


125 


Few  of  these  adventurers  are  so  dull  as  not  to  be 
quickened  into  something  like  curiosity  respecting 
the  language  and  institutions  of  the  strange  people 
among  whom  they  are  thrown,  while  the  better 
sort  and  more  intelligent  are  led  to  study  more 
carefully  the  new  forms,  whether  in  arts  or  letters 
under  which  human  genius  is  unveiled  to  them. 

The  effect  of  all  this  is  especially  visible  in  the 
reforms  introduced  into  the  modern  systems  of  edu¬ 
cation.  In  both  the  universities  recently  established 
in  London,  the  apparatus  for  instruction,  instead  of 
being  limited  to  the  ancient  tongues,  is  extended  to 
the  whole  circle  of  modern  literature  ;  and  the  edi¬ 
torial  labours  of  many  of  the  professors  show  that 
they  do  not  sleep  on  their  posts.  Periodicals,  un¬ 
der  the  management  of  the  ablest  writers,  furnish 
valuable  contributions  of  foreign  criticism  and  intel¬ 
ligence;  and  regular  histories  of  the  various  Conti- 
nental  literatures,  a  department  in  which  the  Eng¬ 
lish  are  singularly  barren,  are  understood  to  be  now 
in  actual  preparation. 

But,  although  barren  of  literary,  the  English  have 
made  important  contributions  to  the  political  his¬ 
tory  of  the  Continental  nations.  That  of  Spain  has 
employed  some  of  their  best  writers,  who,  it  must 
be  admitted,  however,  have  confined  themselves  so 
far  to  the  foreign  relations  of  the  country  as  to 
have  left  the  domestic  in  comparative  obscurity. 
Thus  Robertson’s  great  work  is  quite  as  much  the 
history  of  Europe  as  of  Spain  under  Charles  the 
Fifth  ;  and  Watson’s  “  Reign  of  Philip  the  Second” 


126  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

might  with  equal  propriety  be  styled  “  The  War  of 
the  Netherlands,”  which  is  its  principal  burden. 

A  few  works  recently  published  in  the  United 
States  have  shed  far  more  light  on  the  interior  or¬ 
ganization  and  intellectual  culture  of  the  Spanish 
nation.  Such,  for  example,  are  the  writings  of  Ir¬ 
ving,  whose  gorgeous  colouring  reflects  so  clearly 
the  chivalrous  splendours  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
and  the  travels  of  Lieutenant  Slidell,  presenting 
sketches  equally  animated  of  the  social  aspect  of 
that  most  picturesque  of  all  lands  in  the  present  cen¬ 
tury.  In  Mr.  Cushing’s  “Reminiscences  of  Spain” 
we  find,  mingled  with  much  characteristic  fiction, 
some  very  laborious  inquiries  into  curious  and  recon¬ 
dite  points  of  history.  In  the  purely  literary  depart¬ 
ment,  Mr.  Ticknor’s  beautiful  lectures  before  the 
classes  of  Harvard  University,  still  in  manuscript, 
embrace  a  far  more  extensive  range  of  criticism  than 
is  to  be  found  in  any  Spanish  work,  and  display,  at 
the  same  time,  a  degree  of  thoroughness  and  re¬ 
search  which  the  comparative  paucity  of  materials 
will  compel  us  to  look  for  in  vain  in  Bouterwek  or 
Sismondi.  Mr.  Ticknor’s  successor,  Professor  Long¬ 
fellow,  favourably  known  by  other  compositions,  has 
enriched  our  language  with  a  noble  version  of  the 
“  Coplas  de  Manrique,”  the  finest  gem,  beyond  all 
comparison,  in  the  Castilian  verse  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  We  have  also  read  with  pleasure  a  clever 
translation  of  Quevedo’s  “  Visions,”  no  very  easy 
achievement,  by  Mr.  Elliot,  of  Philadelphia,  though 
the  translator  is  wrong  in  supposing  his  the  first  Eng- 


CERVANTES. 


127 


lish  version.  The  first  is  as  old  as  Queen  Anne’s 
time,  and  was  made  by  the  famous  Sir  Roger 
L’Estrange.  To  close  the  account,  Mr.  Sales,  the 
venerable  instructer  in  Harvard  College,  has  now 
given,  for  the  first  time  in  the  New  World,  an  elab¬ 
orate  edition  of  the  prince  of  Castilian  classics,  in  a 
form  which  may  claim,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  merit 
of  originality. 

We  shall  postpone  the  few  remarks  we  have  to 
make  on  this  edition  to  the  close  of  our  article ;  and, 
in  the  mean  time,  we  propose,  not  to  give  the  life  of 
Cervantes,  but  to  notice  such  points  as  are  least  fa¬ 
miliar  in  his  literary  history,  and  especially  in  regard 
to  the  composition  and  publication  of  his  great  work, 
the  Don  Quixote  ;  a  work  which,  from  its  wide  and 
long-established  popularity,  may  be  said  to  consti¬ 
tute  part  of  the  literature,  not  merely  of  Spain,  but 
of  every  country  in  Europe. 

The  age  of  Cervantes  was  that  of  Philip  the  Sec¬ 
ond,  when  the  Spanish  monarchy,  declining  some¬ 
what  from  its  palmy  state,  was  still  making  extraor¬ 
dinary  efforts  to  maintain,  and  even  to  extend  its  al¬ 
ready  overgrown  empire.  Its  navies  were  on  every 
sea,  and  its  armies  in  every  quarter  of  the  Old  World 
and  in  the  New.  Arms  was  the  only  profession 
worthy  of  a  gentleman ;  and  there  was  scarcely  a 
writer  of  any  eminence — certainly  no  bard — of  the 
age,  who,  if  he  w7ere  not  in  orders,  had  not  borne 
arms,  at  some  period,  in  the  service  of  his  country. 
Cervantes,  who,  though  poor,  was  born  of  an  an¬ 
cient  family  (it  must  go  hard  with  a  Castilian  who 


128  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

cannot  make  out  a  pedigree  for  himself),  had  a  full 
measure  of  this  chivalrous  spirit,  and,  during  the  first 
half  of  his  life,  we  find  him  in  the  midst  of  all  the 
stormy  and  disastrous  scenes  of  the  iron  trade  of 
war.  His  love  of  the  military  profession,  even  after 
the  loss  of  his  hand,  or  of  the  use  of  it,  for  it  is  un¬ 
certain  which,  is  sufficient  proof  of  his  adventurous 
spirit.  In  the  course  of  his  checkered  career  he 
visited  the  principal  countries  in  the  Mediterranean, 
and  passed  five  years  in  melancholy  captivity  at  Al¬ 
giers.  The  time  was  not  lost,  however,  which  fur¬ 
nished  his  keen  eye  with  those  glowing  pictures  of 
Moslem  luxury  and  magnificence  with  which  he  has 
enriched  his  pages.  After  a  life  of  unprecedented 
hardship,  he  returned  to  his  own  country,  covered 
with  laurels  and  scars,  with  very  little  money  in  his 
pocket,  but  with  plenty  of  that  experience  which, 
regarding  him  as  a  novelist,  might  be  considered  his 
stock  in  trade. 

The  poet  may  draw  from  the  depths  of  his  own 
fancy ;  the  scholar  from  his  library ;  but  the  proper 
study  of  the  dramatic  writer,  whether  in  verse  or  in 
prose,  is  man — man,  as  he  exists  in  society.  He 
who  would  faithfully  depict  human  character  can¬ 
not  study  it  too  nearly  and  variously.  He  must  sit 
down,  like  Scott,  by  the  fireside  of  the  peasant,  and 
listen  to  the  “  auld  wife’s”  tale  ;  he  must  preside, 
with  Fielding,  at  a  petty  justice  Sessions,  or  share 
with  some  Squire  Western  in  the  glorious  hazards 
of  a  foxhunt;  he  must,  like  Smollett  and  Cooper, 
study  the  mysteries  of  the  deep,  and  mingle  on  the 


CERVANTES. 


129 


stormy  element  itself  with  the  singular  beings  whose 
destinies  he  is  to  describe  ;  or,  like  Cervantes,  he 
must  wander  among  other  races  and  in  other  climes 
before  his  pencil  can  give  those  chameleon  touches 
which  reflect  the  shifting,  many-coloured  hues  of 
actual  life.  He  may,  indeed,  like  Rousseau,  if  it 
were  possible  to  imagine  another  Rousseau,  turn 
his  thoughts  inward,  and  draw  from  the  depths  of 
his  own  soul ;  but  he  would  see  there  only  his  own 
individual  passions  and  prejudices,  and  the  portraits 
he  might  sketch,  however  various  in  subordinate  de¬ 
tails,  would  be,  in  their  characteristic  features,  only 
the  reproduction  of  himself.  He  might,  in  short,  be 
a  poet,  a  philosopher,  but  not  a  painter  of  life  and 
manners. 

Cervantes  had  ample  means  for  pursuing  the 
study  of  human  character,  after  his  return  to  Spain, 
in  the  active  life  which  engaged  him  in  various  parts 
of  the  country.  In  Andalusia  he  might  have  found 
the  models  of  the  sprightly  wit  and  delicate  irony 
with  which  he  has  seasoned  his  Actions ;  in  Se¬ 
ville,  in  particular,  he  was  brought  in  contact  with 
the  fry  of  small  sharpers  and  pickpockets,  who  make 
so  respectable  a  flgure  in  his  picaresco  novels ;  and 
in  La  Mancha  he  not  only  found  the  geography  of 
his  Hon  Gluixote,  but  that  whimsical  contrast  of 
pride  and  poverty  in  the  natives,  which  has  furnish¬ 
ed  the  outlines  of  many  a  broad  caricature  to  the 
comic  writers  of  Spain. 

During  all  this  while  he  had  made  himself  known 
only  by  his  pastoral  Action,  the  “  Galatea,”  a  beau- 

R 


130  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

tiful  specimen  of  an  insipid  class,  which,  with  all 
its  literary  merits,  afforded  no  scope  for  the  power 
of  depicting  human  character,  which  he  possessed, 
perhaps,  unknown  to  himself.  He  wrote,  also,  a 
good  number  of  plays,  all  of  which,  except  two,  and 
these  recovered  only  at  the  close  of  the  last  centu¬ 
ry,  have  perished.  One  of  these,  “  The  Siege  of 
Numantia,”  displays  that  truth  of  drawing  and 
strength  of  colour  which  mark  the  consummate 
artist.  It  was  not  until  he  had  reached  his  fifty- 
seventh  year  that  he  completed  the  First  Part  of  his 
great  work,  the  Don  Quixote.  The  most  celebrated 
novels,  unlike  most  works  of  imagination,  seem  to 
have  been  the  production  of  the  later  period  of  life. 
Fielding  was  between  forty  and  fifty  when  he  wrote 
“  Tom  Jones.”  Richardson  was  sixty,  or  very  near 
it,  when  he  wrote  “  Clarissa and  Scott  was  some 
years  over  forty  when  he  began  the  series  of  the 
Waverley  novels.  The  world,  the  school  of  the 
novelist,  cannot  be  run  through  like  the  terms  of  a 
university,  and  the  knowledge  of  its  manifold  vari¬ 
eties  must  be  the  result  of  long  and  diligent  training. 

The  First  Part  of  the  Quixote  was  begun,  as  the 
author  tells  us,  in  a  prison,  to  which  he  had  been 
brought,  not  by  crime  or  debt,  but  by  some  offence, 
probably,  to  the  worthy  people  of  La  Mancha.  It 
is  not  the  only  work  of  genius  which  has  struggled 
into  being  in  such  unfavourable  quarters.  The  “Pil¬ 
grim's  Progress,”  the  most  popular,  probably,  of  Eng¬ 
lish  fictions,  was  composed  under  similar  circum¬ 
stances.  But  we  doubt  if  such  brilliant  fancies  and 


CERVANTES. 


131 


such  flashes  of  humour  ever  lighted  up  the  walls  of 
the  prison-house  before  the  time  of  Cervantes. 

The  First  Part  of  the  Don  Quixote  was  given  to 
the  public  in  1605.  Cervantes,  when  the  time  ar¬ 
rived  for  launching  his  satire  against  the  old,  deep- 
rooted  prejudices  of  his  countrymen,  probably  re¬ 
garded  it,  as  well  he  might,  as  little  less  rash  than 
his  own  hero’s  tilt  against  the  windmills,  tie  sought, 
accordingly,  to  shield  himself  under  the  cover  of  a 
powerful  name,  and  asked  leave  to  dedicate  the  book 
to  a  Castilian  grandee,  the  Duke  de  Bejar.  The 
duke,  it  is  said,  whether  ignorant  of  the  design,  or 
doubting  the  success  of  the  work,  would  have  de¬ 
clined,  but  Cervantes  urged  him  first  to  peruse  a 
single  chapter.  The  audience  summoned  to  sit  in 
judgment  were  so  delighted  with  the  first  pages, 
that  they  would  not  abandon  the  novel  till  they  had 
heard  the  whole  of  it.  The  duke,  of  course,  with¬ 
out  farther  hesitation,  condescended  to  allow  his 
name  to  be  inserted  in  this  passport  to  immortality. 

There  is  nothing  very  improbable  in  the  story. 
It  reminds  one  of  a  similar  experiment  by  St.  Pierre, 
who  submitted  his  manuscript  of  “  Paul  and  Vir¬ 
ginia”  to  a  circle  of  French  litterateurs ,  Monsieur 
and  Madame  Necker,  the  Abbe  Galiani,  Thomas, 
Buffon,  and  some  others,  all  wits  of  the  first  water 
in  the  metropolis.  Hear  the  result,  in  the  words  of 
his  biographer,  or,  rather,  his  agreeable  translator  : 
“  At  first  the  author  was  heard  in  silence ;  by  de¬ 
grees  the  attention  grew  languid ;  they  began  to 
whisper,  to  gape,  and  listened  no  longer.  M.  de 


132  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

Buffon  looked  at  his  watch,  and  called  for  his 
horses;  those  near  the  door  slipped  out;  Thomas 
went  to  sleep ;  M.  Necker  laughed  to  see  the  ladies 
weep ;  and  the  ladies,  ashamed  of  their  tears,  did 
not  dare  to  confess  that  they  had  been  interested. 
The  reading  being  finished,  nothing  was  praised. 
Madame  Necker  alone  criticised  the  conversation 
of  Paul  and  the  old  man.  This  moral  appeared  to 
her  tedious  and  commonplace ;  it  broke  the  action, 
chilled  the  reader,  and  was  a  sort  of  glass  of  iced 
water.  M.  de  St.  Pierre  retired  in  a  state  of  inde¬ 
scribable  depression.  He  regarded  what  had  passed 
as  his  sentence  of  death.  The  effect  of  his  work 
on  an  audience  like  that  to  which  he  had  read  it 
left  him  no  hope  for  the  future.”  Yet  this  work 
was  “  Paul  and  Virginia,”  one  of  the  most  popular 
books  in  the  French  language.  So  much  for  criti¬ 
cism  ! 

The  truth  seems  to  be,  that  the  judgment  of  no 
private  circle,  however  well  qualified  by  taste  and 
talent,  can  afford  a  sure  prognostic  of  that  of  the 
great  public.  If  the  manuscript  to  be  criticised  is 
our  friend’s,  of  course  the  verdict  is  made  up  before 
perusal.  If  some  great  man  modestly  sues  for  our 
approbation,  our  self-complacency  has  been  too 
much  flattered  for  us  to  withhold  it.  If  it  be  a  little 
man  (and  St.  Pierre  was  but  a  little  man  at  that 
time),  our  prejudices — the  prejudices  of  poor  human 
nature — will  be  very  apt  to  take  an  opposite  direc¬ 
tion.  Be  the  cause  what  it  may,  whoever  rests  his 
hopes  of  public  favour  on  the  smiles  of  a  coterie 


CERVANTES. 


133 


runs  the  risk  of  finding  himself  very  unpleasantly 
deceived.  Many  a  trim  bark  which  has  flaunted 
gayly  in  a  summer  lake  has  gone  to  pieces  amid  the 
billows  and  breakers  of  the  rude  ocean. 

The  prognostic,  in  the  case  of  Cervantes,  how¬ 
ever,  proved  more  correct.  His  work  produced  an 
instantaneous  effect  on  the  community.  He  had 
struck  a  note  which  found  an  echo  in  every  bosom. 
Four  editions  were  published  in  the  course  of  the 
first  year;  two  in  Madrid,  one  in  Valencia,  and  an¬ 
other  at  Lisbon. 

This  success,  almost  unexampled  in  any  age,  was 
still  more  extraordinary  in  one  in  which  the  read¬ 
ing  public  was  comparatively  limited.  That  the 
book  found  its  way  speedily  into  the  very  highest 
circles  in  the  kingdom  is  evident  from  the  well- 
known  explanation  of  Philip  the  Third,  when  he 
saw  a  student  laughing  immoderately  over  some  vol¬ 
ume  :  “  The  man  must  be  either  out  of  his  wits,  or 
reading  Don  Quixote.”  Notwithstanding  this,  its  au¬ 
thor  felt  none  of  that  sunshine  of  royal  favour  which 
would  have  been  so  grateful  in  his  necessities. 

The  period  was  that  of  the  golden  prime  of  Cas¬ 
tilian  literature.  But  the  monarch  on  the  throne, 
one  of  the  ill-starred  dynasty  of  Austria,  would  have 
been  better  suited  to  the  darkest  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
His  hours,  divided  between  his  devotions  and  his 
debaucheries,  left  nothing  to  spare  for  letters  ;  and 
his  minister,  the  arrogant  Duke  of  Lerma,  was  too 
much  absorbed  by  his  own  selfish,  though  shallow 
schemes  of  policy,  to  trouble  himself  with  romance 


134  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

writers,  or  their  satirist.  Cervantes,  however,  had 
entered  on  a  career  which,  as  he  intimates  in  some 
of  his  verses,  might  lead  to  fame,  but  not  to  fortune. 
Happily,  he  did  not  compromise  his  fame  by  precip¬ 
itating  the  execution  of  his  works  from  motives  of 
temporary  profit.  It  was  not  till  several  years  after 
the  publication  of  the  Don  Quixote  that  he  gave  to 
the  world  his  Exemplary  Novels,  as  he  called  them; 
fictions  which,  differing  from  anything  before  known, 
not  only  in  the  Castilian,  but,  in  some  respects,  in 
any  other  literature,  gave  ample  scope  to  his  dra¬ 
matic  talent,  in  the  contrivance  of  situations,  and 
the  nice  delineation  of  character.  These  works, 
whose  diction  was  uncommonly  rich  and  attractive, 
were  popular  from  the  first. 

One  cannot  but  be  led  to  inquire  why,  with  such 
success  as  an  author,  he  continued  to  be  so  strait¬ 
ened  in  his  circumstances,  as  he  plainly  intimates 
was  the  case  more  than  once  in  his  writings.  From 
the  Don  Quixote,  notwithstanding  its  great  run,  he 
probably  received  little,  since  he  had  parted  with 
the  entire  copyright  before  publication,  when  the 
work  was  regarded  as  an  experiment,  the  result  of 
which  was  quite  doubtful.  It  is  not  so  easy  to  ex¬ 
plain  the  difficulty,  when  his  success  as  an  author 
had  been  so  completely  established.  Cervantes  in¬ 
timates  his  dissatisfaction,  in  more  than  one  place 
in  his  writings,  with  the  booksellers  themselves. 
“  What,  sir !”  replies  an  author  introduced  into  his 
Don  Quixote,  “  would  you  have  me  sell  the  profit 
of  my  labour  to  a  bookseller  for  three  maravedis  a 


CERVANTES. 


135 


sheet?  for  that  is  the  most  they  will  bid,  nay,  and 
expect,  too,  I  should  thank  them  for  the  offer.”  This 
burden  of  lamentation,  the  alleged  illiberally  of  the 
publisher  towards  the  poor  author,  is  as  old  as  the 
art  of  book-making  itself.  But  the  public  receive 
the  account  from  the  party  aggrieved  only.  If  the 
bookseller  reported  his  own  case,  we  should,  no 
doubt,  have  a  different  version.  If  Cervantes  was 
in  the  right,  the  trade  in  Castile  showed  a  degree  of 
dexterity  in  their  proceedings  which  richly  entitled 
them  to  the  pillory.  In  one  of  his  tales,  we  find  a 
certain  licentiate  complaining  of  “  the  tricks  and 
deceptions  they  put  upon  an  author  when  they  buy 
a  copyright  from  him ;  and  still  more,  the  manner 
in  which  they  cheat  him  if  he  prints  the  book  at 
his  own  charges ;  since  nothing  is  more  common 
than  for  them  to  agree  for  fifteen  hundred,  and  have 
privily,  perhaps,  as  many  as  three  thousand  thrown 
off,  one  half,  at  the  least,  of  which  they  sell,  not  for 
his  profit,  but  their  own. 

The  writings  of  Cervantes  appear  to  have  gain¬ 
ed  him,  however,  two  substantial  friends  in  Cabra, 
the  Count  of  Lemos,  and  the  Archbishop  of  Toledo, 
of  the  ancient  family  of  Rojas  ;  and  the  patronage  of 
these  illustrious  individuals  has  been  nobly  recom¬ 
pensed  by  having  their  names  forever  associated  with 
the  imperishable  productions  of  genius. 

There  was  still  one  kind  of  patronage  wanting 
in  this  early  age,  that  of  a  great,  enlightened  com¬ 
munity — the  only  patronage  which  can  be  received 
without  some  sense  of  degradation  by  a  generous 


136  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

mind.  There  was,  indeed,  one  golden  channel  of 
public  favour,  and  that  was  the  theatre.  The  drama 
has  usually  flourished  most  at  the  period  when  a  na¬ 
tion  is  beginning  to  taste  the  sweets  of  literary  cul¬ 
ture.  Such  was  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century  in  Europe;  the  age  of  Shakspeare,  Jonson, 
and  Fletcher  in  England;  of  Ariosto,  Machiavelli, 
and  the  wits  who  first  successfully  wooed  the  comic 
muse  of  Italy ;  of  the  great  Corneille,  some  years 
later,  in  France;  and  of  that  miracle,  or,  rather, 
“monster  of  nature,”  as  Cervantes  styled  him,  Lope 
de  Vega  in  Spain.  Theatrical  exhibitions  are  a 
combination  of  the  material  with  the  intellectual,  at 
which  the  ordinary  spectator  derives  less  pleasure, 
probably,  from  the  beautiful  creations  of  the  poet 
than  from  the  scenic  decorations,  music,  and  other 
accessories  which  address  themselves  to  the  senses. 
The  fondness  for  spectacle  is  characteristic  of  an 
early  period  of  society,  and  the  theatre  is  the  most 
brilliant  of  pageants.  With  the  progress  of  educa¬ 
tion  and  refinement,  men  become  less  open  to,  or, 
at  least,  less  dependant  on  the  pleasures  of  sense,  and 
seek  their  enjoyment  in  more  elevated  and  purer 
sources.  Thus  it  is  that,  instead  of 

“  Sweating  in  the  crowded  theatre,  squeezed 
And  bored  with  elbow-points  through  both  our  sides,” 

as  the  sad  minstrel  of  nature  sings,  we  sit  quietly  at 
home,  enjoying  the  pleasures  of  fiction  around  our 
own  firesides,  and  the  poem  or  the  novel  takes 
the  place  of  the  acted  drama.  The  decline  of  dra- 


CERVANTES. 


137 


matic  writing  may  justly  be  lamented  as  that  of  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  varieties  in  the  garden  of  liter¬ 
ature.  But  it  must  be  admitted  to  be  both  a  symp¬ 
tom  and  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  advance  of 
civilization. 

The  popularity  of  the  stage,  at  the  period  of  which 
we  are  speaking,  in  Spain,  was  greatly  augmented 
by  the  personal  influence  and  reputation  of  Lope  de 
Vega,  the  idol  of  his  countrymen,  who  threw  off  the 
various  inventions  of  his  genius  with  a  rapidity  and 
profusion  that  almost  staggers  credibility.  It  is  im¬ 
possible  to  state  the  results  of  his  labours  in  any  form 
that  will  not  powerfully  strike  the  imagination.  Thus, 
he  has  left  21,300,000  verses  in  print,  besides  a  mass 
of  manuscript.  He  furnished  the  theatre,  according 
to  the  statement  of  his  intimate  friend,  Montalvan, 
with  1800  regular  plays,  and  400  autos  or  religious 
dramas — all  acted.  He  composed,  according  to  his 
own  statement,  more  than  100  comedies  in  the  al¬ 
most  incredible  space  of  twenty-four  hours  each,  and 
a  comedy  averaged  between  two  and  three  thousand 
verses,  great  part  of  them  rhymed  and  interspersed 
with  sonnets  and  other  more  difficult  forms  of  ver¬ 
sification.  He  lived  seventy-two  years;  and  suppo¬ 
sing  him  to  have  employed  fifty  of  that  period  in 
composition,  although  he  filled  a  variety  of  engross¬ 
ing  vocations  during  that  time,  he  must  have  aver¬ 
aged  a  play  a  week,  to  say  nothing  of  twenty-one 
volumes  quarto  of  miscellaneous  works,  including 
five  epics,  written  in  his  leisure  moments,  and  all 
now  in  print ! 


S 


138  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

The  only  achievements  we  can  recall  in  literary 
history  bearing  any  resemblance  to,  though  falling 
far  short  of  this,  are  those  of  our  illustrious  contem¬ 
porary,  Sir  Walter  Scott.  The  complete  edition  of 
his  works,  recently  advertised  by  Murray,  with  the 
addition  of  two  volumes,  of  which  Murray  has  not 
the  copyright,  probably  contains  ninety  volumes 
small  octavo.  To  these  should  farther  be  added  a 
large  supply  of  matter  for  the  Edinburgh  Annual 
Register,  as  well  as  other  anonymous  contributions. 
Of  these,  forty-eight  volumes  of  novels  and  twenty- 
one  of  history  and  biography  were  produced  be¬ 
tween  1814  and  1831,  or  in  seventeen  years.  These 
would  give  an  average  of  four  volumes  a  year,  or 
one  for  every  three  months  during  the  whole  of  that 
period,  to  which  must  be  added  twenty-one  volumes 
of  poetry  and  prose  previously  published.  The  mere 
mechanical  execution  of  so  much  work,  both  in  his 
case  and  Lope  de  Vega’s,  would  seem  to  be  scarce 
possible  in  the  limits  assigned.  Scott,  too,  was  as 
variously  occupied  in  other  ways  as  his  Spanish  ri¬ 
val,  and  probably,  from  the  social  hospitality  of  his 
life,  spent  a  much  larger  portion  of  his  time  in  no 
literary  occupation  at  all. 

Notwithstanding  we  have  amused  ourselves,  at 
the  expense  of  the  reader’s  patience  perhaps,  with 
these  calculations,  this  certainly  is  not  the  standard 
by  which  we  should  recommend  to  estimate  works 
of  genius.  Wit  is  not  to  be  measured,  like  broad¬ 
cloth,  by  the  yard.  Easy  writing,  as  the  adage  says, 
and  as  we  all  know,  is  apt  to  be  very  hard  reading. 


CERVANTES. 


139 


This  brings  to  our  recollection  a  conversation,  in  the 
presence  of  Captain  Basil  Hall,  in  which  some  allu¬ 
sion  having  been  made  to  the  astonishing  amount  of 
Scott’s  daily  composition,  the  literary  argonaut  re¬ 
marked,  “There  was  nothing  astonishing  in  all  that, 
and  that  he  did  as  much  himself  nearly  every  day 
before  breakfast.”  Some  one  of  the  company  un¬ 
kindly  asked  “  whether  he  thought  the  quality  was 
the  same.”  It  is  the  quality,  undoubtedly,  which 
makes  the  difference.  And  in  this  view  Lope  de 
Vega’s  miracles  lose  much  of  their  effect.  Of  all 
his  multitudinous  dramas,  one  or  two  only  retain 
possession  of  the  stage,  and  few,  very  few  are  now 
even  read.  His  facility  of  composition  was  like  that 
of  an  Italian  improvisatore,  whose  fertile  fancy  ea¬ 
sily  clothes  itself  in  verse,  in  a  language  the  vowel 

terminations  of  which  afford  such  a  plenitude  of 

* 

rhymes.  The  Castilian  presents  even  greater  facil¬ 
ities  for  this  than  the  Italian.  Lope  de  Vega  was  an 
improvisatore. 

With  all  his  negligences  and  defects,  however, 
Lope’s  interesting  intrigues,  easy,  sprightly  dialogue, 
infinite  variety  of  inventions,  and  the  breathless  ra¬ 
pidity  with  which  they  followed  one  another,  so 
dazzled  and  bewildered  the  imagination,  that  he 
completely  controlled  the  public,  and  became,  in 
the  words  of  Cervantes,  “sole  monarch  of  the  stage.” 
The  public  repaid  him  with  such  substantial  grati¬ 
tude  as  has  never  been  shown,  probably,  to  any  other 
of  its  favourites.  His  fortune  at  one  time,  although 
he  was  careless  of  his  expenses,  amounted  to  one 


140  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

hundred  thousand  ducats,  equal,  probably,  to  between 
seven  and  eight  hundred  thousand  dollars  of  the  pres¬ 
ent  day.  In  the  same  street  in  which  dwelt  this 
spoiled  child  of  fortune,  who,  amid  the  caresses  of 
the  great,  and  the  lavish  smiles  of  the  public,  could 
complain  that  his  merits  were  negleted,  lived  Cer¬ 
vantes,  struggling  under  adversity,  or  at  least  earning 
a  painful  subsistence  by  the  labours  of  his  immortal 
pen.  What  a  contrast  do  these  pictures  present  to 
the  imagination !  If  the  suffrages  of  a  coterie ,  as 
we  have  said,  afford  no  warrant  for  those  of  the  pub¬ 
lic,  the  example  before  us  proves  that  the  award  of 
one’s  contemporaries  is  quite  as  likely  to  be  set  aside 
by  posterity.  Lope  de  Vega,  who  gave  his  name  to 
his  age,  has  now  fallen  into  neglect  even  among  his 
countrymen,  while  the  fame  of  Cervantes,  gathering 
strength  with  time,  has  become  the  pride  of  his  own 
nation,  as  his  works  still  continue  to  be  the  delight 
of  the  whole  civilized  world. 

However  stinted  may  have  been  the  recompense 
of  his  deserts  at  home,  it  is  gratifying  to  observe  how 
widely  his  fame  was  diffused  in  his  own  lifetime,  and 
that  in  foreign  countries,  at  least,  he  enjoyed  the  full 
consideration  to  which  he  was  entitled.  An  inter¬ 
esting  anecdote  illustrating  this  is  recorded,  which, 
as  we  have  never  seen  it  in  English,  we  will  lay  be¬ 
fore  the  reader.  On  occasion  of  a  visit  made  by  the 
Archbishop  of  Toledo  to  the  French  ambassador, 
resident  at  Madrid,  the  prelate’s  suite  fell  into  con¬ 
versation  with  the  attendants  of  the  minister,  in  the 
course  of  which  Cervantes  was  mentioned.  The 


CERVANTES. 


141 


French  gentlemen  expressed  their  unqualified  admi¬ 
ration  of  his  writings,  specifying  the  Galatea,  Don 
Quixote,  and  the  Novels,  which,  they  said,  were 
read  in  all  the  countries  round,  and  in  France  par¬ 
ticularly,  where  there  were  some  who  might  be  said 
to  know  them  actually  by  heart.  They  intimated 
their  desire  to  become  personally  acquainted  with  so 
eminent  a  man,  and  asked  many  questions  respect¬ 
ing  his  present  occupations,  his  circumstances,  and 
way  of  life.  To  all  this  the  Castilians  could  only 
reply  that  he  had  borne  arms  in  the  service  of  his 
country,  and  was  now  old  and  poor.  “  What !”  ex¬ 
claimed  one  of  the  strangers,  “is  Seiior  Cervantes 
not  in  good  circumstances  1  Why  is  he  not  main¬ 
tained,  then,  out  of  the  public  treasury  V*  “  Heaven 
forbid,”  rejoined  another,  “  that  his  necessities  should 
be  ever  relieved,  if  it  is  these  which  make  him  write, 
since  it  is  his  poverty  that  makes  the  world  rich.” 

There  are  other  evidences,  though  not  of  so  pleas¬ 
ing  a  character,  of  the  eminence  which  he  had  reach¬ 
ed  at  home  in  the  jealousy  and  ill  will  of  his  broth¬ 
er  poets.  The  Castilian  poets  of  that  day  seem  to 
have  possessed  a  full  measure  of  that  irritability 
which  has  been  laid  at  the  door  of  all  their  tribe 
since  the  days  of  Horace  ;  and  the  freedom  of  Cer¬ 
vantes’s  literary  criticisms,  in  his  Don  Quixote  and 
other  writings,  though  never  personal  in  their  char¬ 
acter,  brought  down  on  his  head  a  storm  of  arrows, 
some  of  which,  if  not  sent  with  much  force,  were, 
at  least,  well  steeped  in  venom.  Lope  de  Vega  is 
even  said  to  have  appeared  among  the  assailants, 


142  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

and  a  sonnet,  still  preserved,  is  currently  imputed  to 
him,  in  which,  after  much  eulogy  on  himself,  he  pre¬ 
dicts  that  the  works  of  his  rival  will  find  their  way 
into  the  kennel.  But  the  author  of  this  bad  proph¬ 
ecy  and  worse  poetry  could  never  have  been  the 
great  Lope,  who  showed,  on  all  occasions,  a  gener¬ 
ous  spirit,  and  whose  literary  success  must  have 
made  such  an  assault  unnecessary,  and  in  the  high¬ 
est  degree  unmanly.  On  the  contrary,  we  have  ev¬ 
idence  of  a  very  different  feeling,  in  the  homage 
which  he  renders  to  the  merits  of  his  illustrious  con¬ 
temporary,  in  more  than  one  passage  of  his  acknowl¬ 
edged  works,  especially  in  his  ‘‘Laurel  de  Apolo,” 
in  which  he  concludes  his  poetical  panegyric  with 
the  following  touching  conceit : 

“  Porque  se  diga  que  una  mano  herida, 

Pudo  dar  a  su  dueno  eterna  vida.” 

This  poem  was  published  by  Lope  in  1630,  four¬ 
teen  years  after  the  death  of  his  rival ;  notwithstand¬ 
ing,  Mr.  Lockhart  informs  his  readers,  in  his  bio¬ 
graphical  preface  to  the  Don  Quixote,  that  “as  Lope 
de  Yega  was  dead  (1615),  there  was  no  one  to  di¬ 
vide  with  Cervantes  the  literary  empire  of  his  coun¬ 
try.” 

In  the  dedication  of  his  ill-fated  comedies,  1615 
(for  Cervantes,  like  most  other  celebrated  novelists, 
found  it  difficult  to  concentrate  his  expansive  vein 
within  the  compass  of  dramatic  rules),  the  public 
was  informed  that  “  Don  Quixote  was  already  boot¬ 
ed,”  and  preparing  for  another  sally.  It  may  seem 
strange  that  the  author,  considering  the  great  popu- 


CERVANTES. 


143 


larity  of  his  hero,  had  not  sent  him  on  his  adven¬ 
tures  before.  But  he  had  probably  regarded  them 
as  already  terminated ;  and  he  had  good  reason  to 
do  so,  since  every  incident  in  the  First  Part,  as  it 
has  been  styled  only  since  the  publication  of  the 
Second,  is  complete  in  itself,  and  the  Don,  although 
not  actually  killed  on  the  stage,  is  noticed  as  dead, 
and  his  epitaph  transcribed  for  the  reader.  How¬ 
ever  this  may  be,  the  immediate  execution  of  his 
purpose,  so  long  delayed,  was  precipitated  by  an 
event  equally  unwelcome  and  unexpected.  This 
was  the  continuation  of  his  work  by  another  hand. 

The  author’s  name,  his  nom  de  guerre,  was  Avel- 
laneda,  a  native  of  Tordesillas.  Adopting  the  ori¬ 
ginal  idea  of  Cervantes,  he  goes  forward  with  the 
same  characters,  through  similar  scenes  of  comic 
extravagance,  in  the  course  of  which  he  perpetrates 
sundry  plagiarisms  from  the  First  Part,  and  has  some 
incidents  so  much  resembling  those  in  the  Second 
Part,  already  written  by  Cervantes,  that  it  has  been 
supposed  he  must  have  had  access  to  his  manuscript. 
It  is  more  probable,  as  the  resemblance  is  but  gen¬ 
eral,  that  he  obtained  his  knowledge  through  hints, 
which  may  have  fallen  in  conversation,  from  Cer¬ 
vantes,  in  the  progress  of  his  own  work.  The  spu¬ 
rious  continuation  had  some  little  merit,  and  attract¬ 
ed,  probably,  some  interest,  as  any  work  conducted 
under  so  popular  a  name  could  not  have  failed  to 
do.  It  was,  however,  on  the.  whole,  a  vulgar  per¬ 
formance,  thickly  sprinkled  with  such  gross  scurril¬ 
ity  and  indecency,  as  was  too  strong  even  for  the 


144  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

palate  of  that  not  very  fastidious  age.  The  public 
feeling  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  the  author 
did  not  dare  to  depart  from  his  incognito,  and  claim 
the  honours  of  a  triumph.  The  most  diligent  in¬ 
quiries  have  established  nothing  farther  than  that  he 
was  an  Aragonese,  judging  from  his  diction,  and 
from  the  complexion  of  certain  passages  in  the  work 
probably  an  ecclesiastic,  and  one  of  the  swarm  of 
small  dramatists,  who  felt  themselves  rudely  handled 
by  the  criticism  of  Cervantes.  The  work  was  sub¬ 
sequently  translated,  or  rather  paraphrased,  by  Le 
Sage,  who  has  more  than  once  given  a  substantial 
value  to  gems  of  little  price  in  Castilian  literature 
by  the  brilliancy  of  his  setting.  The  original  work 
of  Avellaneda,  always  deriving  an  interest  from  the 
circumstances  of  its  production,  has  been  reprinted 
in  the  present  century,  and  is  not  difficult  to  be  met 
with.  To  have  thus  coolly  invaded  an  author’s 
own  property,  to  have  filched  from  him  the  splendid, 
though  unfinished  creations  of  his  genius,  before  liis 
own  face,  and  while,  as  was  publicly  known,  he  was 
in  the  very  process  of  completing  them,  must  be  ad¬ 
mitted  to  be  an  act  of  unblushing  effrontery,  not 
surpassed  in  the  annals  of  literature. 

Cervantes  was  much  annoyed,  it  appears,  by  the 
circumstance.  The  continuation  of  Avellaneda 
reached  him,  probably,  when  on  the  fifty-ninth 
chapter  of  the  Second  Part.  At  least,  from  that  time 
he  begins  to  discharge  his  gall  on  the  head  of  the  of¬ 
fender,  who,  it  should  be  added,  had  consummated 
his  impudence  by  sneering,  in  his  introduction,  at  the 


CERVANTES 


145 


qualifications  of  Cervantes.  The  best  retort  of  the 
latter,  however,  was  the  publication  of  his  own  book, 
which  followed  at  the  close  of  1615. 

The  English  novelist,  Richardson,  experienced  a 
treatment  not  unlike  that  of  the  Castilian.  His  pop¬ 
ular  story  of  Pamela  was  continued  by  another  and 
very  inferior  hand,  under  the  title  of  “Pamela  in 
High  Life.”  The  circumstance  prompted  Richard¬ 
son  to  undertake  the  continuation  himself ;  and  it 
turned  out,  like  most  others,  a  decided  failure.  In¬ 
deed,  a  skilful  continuation  seems  to  be  the  most 
difficult  work  of  art.  The  first  effort  of  the  author 
breaks,  as  it  were,  unexpectedly  on  the  public,  taking 
their  judgments  by  surprise,  and  by  its  very  success 
creating  a  standard  by  which  the  author  himself  is 
subsequently  to  be  tried.  Before,  he  was  compared 
with  others ;  he  is  now  to  be  compared  with  him¬ 
self.  The  public  expectation  has  been  raised.  A 
degree  of  excellence,  which  might  have  found  favour 
at  first,  will  now  scarcely  be  tolerated.  It  will  not 
even  suffice  for  him  to  maintain  his  own  level.  He 
must  rise  above  himself.  The  reader,  in  the  mean 
while,  has  naturally  filled  up  the  blank,  and  insen¬ 
sibly  conducted  the  characters  and  the  story  to  a 
termination  in  his  own  way.  As  the  reality  sel¬ 
dom  keeps  pace  with  the  ideal,  the  author’s  execu¬ 
tion  will  hardly  come  up  to  the  imagination  of  his 
readers ;  at  any  rate,  it  will  differ  from  them,  and 
so  far  be  displeasing.  We  experience  something  of 
this  disappointment  in  the  dramas  borrowed  from 
popular  novels,  where  the  development  of  the  char- 

T 


146  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

acters  by  the  dramatic  author,  and  the  new  direction 
given  to  the  original  story  in  his  hands,  rarely  fail 
to  offend  the  taste  and  preconceived  ideas  of  the 
spectator.  To  feel  the  force  of  this,  it  is  only 
necessary  to  see  the  Guy  Mannering,  Rob  Roy, 
and  other  plays  dramatized  from  the  Waverley 
novels. 

Some  part  of  the  failure  of  such  continuations  is, 
no  doubt,  fairly  chargeable,  in  most  instances,  on  the 
author  himself,  who  goes  to  his  new  task  with  little 
of  his  primitive  buoyancy  and  vigour.  He  no  long¬ 
er  feels  the  same  interest  in  his  own  labours,  which, 
losing  their  freshness,  have  become  as  familiar  to 
his  imagination  as  a  thrice-told  tale.  The  new 
composition  has,  of  course,  a  different  complexion 
from  the  former,  cold,  stiff,  and  disjointed,  like  a 
bronze  statue,  whose  parts  have  been  separately  put 
together,  instead  of  being  cast  in  one  mould  when 
the  whole  metal  was  in  a  state  of  fusion. 

The  continuation  of  Cervantes  forms  a  splendid 
exception  to  the  general  rule.  The  popularity  of 
his  First  Part  had  drawn  forth  abundance  of  criti¬ 
cism,  and  he  availed  himself  of  it  to  correct  some 
material  blemishes  in  the  design  of  the  Second, 
while  an  assiduous  culture  of  the  Castilian  enabled 
him  to  enrich  his  style  with  greater  variety  and 
beauty. 

He  had  now  reached  the  zenith  of  his  fame,  and 
the  profits  of  his  continuation  may  have  relieved 
the  pecuniary  embarrassments  under  which  he  had 
struggled.  But  he  was  not  long  to  enjoy  his 


CERVANTES. 


147 


triumph.  Before  his  death,  which  took  place  in 
the  following  year,  he  completed  his  romance  of 
“  Persiles  and  Sigismunda,”  the  dedication  to  which, 
written  a  few  days  before  his  death,  is  strongly  char¬ 
acteristic  of  its  writer.  It  is  addressed  to  his  old 
patron,  the  Conde  de  Lemos,  then  absent  from  the 
country.  After  saying,  in  the  words  of  the  old 
Spanish  proverb,  that  he  had  “  one  foot  in  the  stir¬ 
rup ”  in  allusion  to  the  distant  journey  on  which  he 
was  soon  to  set  out,  he  adds,  “  Yesterday  I  received 
the  extreme  unction ;  but,  now  that  the  shadows  oi 
death  are  closing  around  me,  I  still  cling  to  life, 
from  the  love  of  it,  as  well  as  from  the  desire  to  be¬ 
hold  you  again.  But  if  it  is  decreed  otherwise  (and 
the  will  of  Heaven  be  done),  your  excellency  will 
at  least  feel  assured  there  was  one  person  whose 
wish  to  serve  you  was  greater  than  the  love  of  life 
itself/’  After  these  reminiscences  of  his  benefactor, 
he  expresses  his  own  purpose,  should  life  be  spared, 
to  complete  several  works  he  had  already  begun. 
Such  were  the  last  words  of  this  illustrious  man ; 
breathing  the  same  generous  sensibility,  the  same 
ardent  love  of  letters,  and  beautiful  serenity  of  tem¬ 
per  which  distinguished  him  through  life.  He  died 
a  few  days  after,  on  the  23d  of  April,  1616.  His 
remains  were  laid,  without  funeral  pomp,  in  the  mon¬ 
astery  of  the  Holy  Trinity  at  Madrid.  No  memo¬ 
rial  points  out  the  spot  to  the  eye  of  the  traveller, 
nor  is  it  known  at  this  day.  And,  while  many  a 
costly  construction  has  been  piled  on  the  ashes  of 
the  little  great,  to  the  shame  of  Spain  be  it  spoken, 


148  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

no  monument  has  yet  been  erected  in  honour  of 
the  greatest  genius  she  has  produced.  He  has  built, 
however,  a  monument  for  himself  more  durable  than 
brass  or  sculptured  marble. 

Don  Quixote  is  too  familiar  to  the  reader  to  re¬ 
quire  any  analysis ;  but  we  will  enlarge  on  a  few 
circumstances  attending  its  composition  but  little 
known  to  the  English  scholar,  which  may  enable 
him  to  form  a  better  judgment  for  himself.  The 
age  of  chivalry,  as  depicted  in  romances,  could  nev¬ 
er,  of  course,  have  had  any  real  existence ;  but  the 
sentiments  which  are  described  as  animating  that 
age  have  been  found  more  or  less  operative  in  differ¬ 
ent  countries  and  different  periods  of  society.  In 
Spain,  especially,  this  influence  is  to  be  discerned 
from  a  very  early  date.  Its  inhabitants  may  be  said 
to  have  lived  in  a  romantic  atmosphere,  in  which 
all  the  extravagances  of  chivalry  were  nourished  by 
their  peculiar  situation.  Their  hostile  relations  with 
the  Moslem  kept  alive  the  full  glow  of  religious  and 
patriotic  feeling.  Their  history  is  one  interminable 
crusade.  An  enemy  always  on  the  borders,  invited 
perpetual  displays  of  personal  daring  and  adventure. 
The  refinement  and  magnificence  of  the  Spanish 
Arabs  throw  a  lustre  over  these  contests,  such  as 
could  not  be  reflected  from  the  rude  skirmishes  with 
their  Christian  neighbours.  Lofty  sentiments,  em¬ 
bellished  by  the  softer  refinements  of  courtesy,  were 
blended  in  the  martial  bosom  of  the  Spaniard,  and 
Spain  became  emphatically  the  land  of  romantic 
chivalry. 


CERVANTES. 


149 


The  very  laws  themselves,  conceived  in  this  spirit, 
contributed  greatly  to  foster  it.  The  ancient  code 
of  Alfonso  the  Tenth,  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
after  many  minute  regulations  for  the  deportment  of 
the  good  knight,  enjoins  on  him  to  “invoke  the  name 
of  his  mistress  in  the  fight,  that  it  may  infuse  new 
ardour  into  his  soul,  and  preserve  him  from  the  com¬ 
mission  of  unknightly  actions.”  Such  laws  were 
not  a  dead  letter.  The  history  of  Spain  shows  that 
the  sentiment  of  romantic  gallantry  penetrated  the 
nation  more  deeply,  and  continued  longer  than  in 
any  other  quarter  of  Christendom. 

Foreign  chroniclers,  as  well  as  domestic,  of  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  notice  the  frequent 
appearance  of  Spanish  knights  in  different  courts  of 
Europe,  whither  they  had  travelled,  in  the  language 
of  an  old  writer,  “  to  seek  honour  and  reverence”  by 
their  feats  of  arms.  In  the  Paston  Letters,  written 
in  the  time  of  Henry  the  Sixth  of  England,  we  find 
a  notice  of  a  Castilian  knight  who  presented  him¬ 
self  before  the  court,  and,  with  his  mistress’s  favour 
around  his  arm,  challenged  the  English  cavaliers 
“  to  run  a  course  of  sharp  spears  with  him  for  his 
sovereign  lady’s  sake.”  Pulgar,  a  Spanish  chron¬ 
icler  of  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  speaks  of 
this  roving  knight-errantry  as  a  thing  of  familiar  oc¬ 
currence  among  the  young  cavaliers  of  his  day ;  and 
Oviedo,  who  lived  somewhat  later,  notices  the  ne¬ 
cessity  under  which  every  true  knight  found  himself, 
of  being  in  love,  or  feigning  to  be  so ,  in  order  to 
give  a  suitable  lustre  and  incentive  to  his  achieve- 


150  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

merits.  Bat  the  most  singular  proof  of  the  extrava¬ 
gant  pitch  to  which  these  romantic  feelings  wTere 
carried  in  Spain  occurs  in  the  account  of  the  jousts 
appended  to  the  fine  old  chronicle  of  Alvaro  de 
Luna,  published  by  the  Academy  in  1784.  The 
principal  champion  was  named  Sueno  de  duenones, 
who,  with  nine  companions  in  arms,  defended  a  pass 
at  Orbigo,  not  far  from  the  shrine  of  Compostella, 
against  all  comers,  in  the  presence  of  King  John  the 
Second  and  his  court.  The  object  of  this  passage 
of  arms,  as  it  was  called,  was  to  release  the  knight 
from  the  obligation  imposed  on  him  by  his  mistress, 
of  publicly  wearing  an  iron  collar  round  his  neck 
every  Thursday.  The  jousts  continued  for  thirty 
days,  and  the  doughty  champions  fought  without 
shield  or  target,  with  weapons  bearing  points  of 
Milan  steel.  Six  hundred  and  twenty-seven  en¬ 
counters  took  place,  and  one  hundred  and  sixty-six 
lances  were  broken,  when  the  emprise  was  declared 
to  be  fairly  achieved.  The  whole  affair  is  narrated, 
with  becoming  gravity,  by  an  eyewitness,  and  the 
reader  may  fancy  himself  perusing  the  adventures  of 
a  Launcelot  or  an  Amadis.  The  particulars  of  this 
tourney  are  detailed  at  length  in  Mills’s  Chivalry 
(vol.  ii.,  chap,  v.),  where,  however,  the  author  has 
defrauded  the  successful  champions  of  their  full  hon¬ 
ours  by  incorrectly  reporting  the  number  of  lances 
broken  as  only  sixty-six. 

The  taste  for  these  romantic  extravagances  natu¬ 
rally  fostered  a  corresponding  taste  for  the  perusal 
of  tales  of  chivalry.  Indeed,  they  acted  reciprocally 


CERVANTES. 


151 


on  each  other.  These  chimerical  legends  had  once, 
also,  beguiled  the  long  evenings  of  our  Norman  an¬ 
cestors  ;  but,  in  the  progress  of  civilization,  had 
gradually  given  way  to  other  and  more  natural  forms 
of  composition.  They  still  maintained  their  ground 
in  Italy,  whither  they  had  passed  later,  and  where 
they  were  consecrated  by  the  hand  of  genius.  But 
Italy  was  not  the  true  soil  of  chivalry,  and  the  inim¬ 
itable  fictions  of  Bojardo,  Pulci,  and  Ariosto  were 
composed  with  that  lurking  smile  of  half-suppressed 
mirth  which,  far  from  a  serious  tone,  could  raise 
only  a  corresponding  smile  of  incredulity  in  the 
reader. 

In  Spain,  however,  the  marvels  of  romance  were 
all  taken  in  perfect  good  faith.  Not  that  they  were 
received  as  literally  true ;  but  the  reader  surrendered 
himself  up  to  the  illusion,  and  was  moved  to  admi¬ 
ration  by  the  recital  of  deeds  which,  viewed  in  any 
other  light  than  as  a  wild  frolic  of  imagination,  would 
be  supremely  ridiculous ;  for  these  tales  had  not  the 
merit  of  a  seductive  style  and  melodious  versifica¬ 
tion  to  relieve  them.  They  were,  for  the  most  part, 
an  ill-digested  mass  of  incongruities,  in  which  there 
was  as  little  keeping  and  probability  in  the  charac¬ 
ters  as  in  the  incidents,  while  the  whole  was  told  in 
that  stilted  “  Hercles’  vein,”  and  with  that  licen¬ 
tiousness  of  allusion  and  imagery  which  could  not 
fail  to  debauch  both  the  taste  and  the  morals  of  the 
youthful  reader.  The  mind,  familiarized  with  these 
monstrous,  over-coloured  pictures,  lost  all  relish  for 
the  chaste  and  sober  productions  of  art.  The  love 


152  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

of  the  gigantic  and  the  marvellous  indisposed  the 
reader  for  the  simple  delineations  of  truth  in  real 
history.  The  feelings  expressed  by  a  sensible  Span¬ 
iard  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  anonymous  author 
of  the  “  Dialogo  de  las  Lenguas,”  probably  represent 
those  of  many  of  his  contemporaries.  “  Ten  of  the 
best  years  of  my  life,”  says  he,  “  were  spent  no  more 
profitably  than  in  devouring  these  lies,  which  I  did 
even  while  eating  my  meals ;  and  the  consequence 
of  this  depraved  appetite  was,  that  if  I  took  in  hand 
any  true  book  of  history,  or  one  that  passed  for  such, 
I  was  unable  to  wade  through  it.” 

The  influence  of  this  meretricious  taste  was  near¬ 
ly  as  fatal  on  the  historian  himself  as  on  his  readers, 
since  he  felt  compelled  to  minister  to  the  public  ap¬ 
petite  such  a  mixture  of  the  marvellous  in  all  his 
narrations  as  materially  discredited  the  veracity  of 
his  writings.  Every  hero  became  a  demigod,  who 
put  the  labours  of  Hercules  to  shame  ;  and  every 
monk  or  old  hermit  was  converted  into  a  saint,  who 
wrought  more  miracles,  before  and  after  death,  than 
would  have  sufficed  to  canonize  a  monastery.  The 
fabulous  ages  of  Greece  are  scarcely  more  fabulous 
than  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  Spanish  his¬ 
tory,  which  compares  very  discreditably,  in  this  par¬ 
ticular,  with  similar  periods  in  most  European  coun¬ 
tries.  The  confusion  of  fact  and  fiction  continues 
to  a  very  late  age  ;  and  as  one  gropes  his  way 
through  the  twilight  of  tradition,  he  is  at  a  loss 
whether  the  dim  objects  are  men  or  shadows.  The 
most  splendid  names  in  Castilian  annals — names  in- 


CERVANTES. 


153 


corporated  with  the  glorious  achievements  of  the 
land,  and  embalmed  alike  in  the  page  of  the  chron¬ 
icler  and  the  song  of  the  minstrel — names  associated 
with  the  most  stirring,  patriotic  recollections — are 
now  found  to  have  been  the  mere  coinage  of  fancy. 
There  seems  to  be  no  more  reason  for  believing  in 
the  real  existence  of  Bernardo  del  Carpio,  of  whom 
so  much  has  been  said  and  sung,  than  in  that  of 
Charlemagne’s  paladins,  or  of  the  Knights  of  the 
Round  Table.  Even  the  Cid,  the  national  hero  of 
Spain,  is  contended,  by  some  of  the  shrewdest  na¬ 
tive  critics  of  our  own  times,  to  be  an  imaginary  be¬ 
ing  ;  and  it  is  certain  that  the  splendid  fabric  of  his 
exploits,  familiar  as  household  words  to  every  Span¬ 
iard,  has  crumbled  to  pieces  under  the  rude  touch 
of  modern  criticism.  These  heroes,  it  is  true,  flour¬ 
ished  before  the  introduction  of  romances  of  chiv¬ 
alry  ;  but  the  legends  of  their  prowess  have  been 
multiplied  beyond  bounds,  in  consequence  of  the 
taste  created  by  these  romances,  and  an  easy  faith 
accorded  to  them  at  the  same  time,  such  as  would 
never  have  been  conceded  in  any  other  civilized 
nation.  In  short,  the  elements  of  truth  and  false¬ 
hood  became  so  blended,  that  history  was  converted 
into  romance,  and  romance  received  the  credit  due 
only  to  history. 

These  mischievous  consequences  drew  down  the 
animadversions  of  thinking  men,  and  at  length  pro¬ 
voked  the  interference  of  government  itself.  In 
1543,  Charles  the  Fifth,  by  an  edict,  prohibited  books 
of  chivalry  from  being  imported  into  his  Ameri- 

U 


154  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

can  colonies,  or  being  printed,  or  even  read  there 
The  legislation  for  America  proceeded  from  the 
crown  alone,  which  had  always  regarded  the  New 
World  as  its  own  exclusive  property.  In  1555, 
however,  the  Cortes  of  the  kingdom  presented  a 
petition  (which  requires  only  the  royal  signature  to 
become  at  once  the  law),  setting  forth  the  manifold 
evils  resulting  from  these  romances.  There  is  an 
air  at  once  both  of  simplicity  and  solemnity  in  the 
language  of  this  instrument  which  may  amuse  the 
reader :  “  Moreover,  we  say  that  it  is  very  notorious 
what  mischief  has  been  done  to  young  men  and 
maidens,  and  other  persons,  by  the  perusal  of  books 
full  of  lies  and  vanities,  like  Amadis,  and  works  of 
that  description,  since  young  people  especially,  from 
their  natural  idleness,  resort  to  this  kind  of  reading, 
and,  becoming  enamoured  of  passages  of  love  or 
arms,  or  other  nonsense  which  they  find  set  forth 
therein,  when  situations  at  all  analogous  offer,  are 
led  to  act  much  more  extravagantly  than  they  other¬ 
wise  would  have  done.  And  many  times  the  daugh¬ 
ter,  when  her  mother  has  locked  her  up  safely  at 
home,  amuses  herself  with  reading  these  books,  which 
do  her  more  hurt  than  she  would  have  received  from 
going  abroad.  All  which  redounds,  not  only  to  the 
dishonour  of  individuals,  but  to  the  great  detriment 
of  conscience,  by  diverting  the  affections  from  holy, 
true,  and  Christian  doctrine,  to  those  wicked  vani¬ 
ties  with  which  the  wits,  as  we  have  intimated,  are 
completely  bewildered.  To  remedy  this,  we  entreat 
your  majesty  that  no  book  treating  of  such  matters 


CERVANTES. 


155 


be  henceforth  permitted  to  be  read,  that  those  now 
printed  be  collected  and  burned,  and  that  none  be 
published  hereafter  without  special  license;  by  which 
measures  your  majesty  will  render  great  service  to 
God  as  well  as  to  these  kingdoms,”  &c.,  &c. 

Notwithstanding  this  emphatic  expression  of  pub¬ 
lic  disapprobation,  these  enticing  works  maintained 
their  popularity.  The  Emperor  Charles,  unmindful 
of  his  own  interdict,  took  great  satisfaction  in  their 
perusal.  The  royal  fetes  frequently  commemorated 
the  fabulous  exploits  of  chivalry,  and  Philip  the  Sec¬ 
ond,  then  a  young  man,  appeared  in  these  spectacles 
in  the  character  of  an  adventurous  knight-errant. 
Moratin  enumerates  more  than  seventy  bulky  ro¬ 
mances,  all  produced  in  the  sixteenth  century,  some 
of  which  passed  through  several  editions,  while 
many  more  works  of  the  kind  have,  doubtless,  es¬ 
caped  his  researches.  The  last  on  his  catalogue 
was  printed  in  1602,  and  was  composed  by  one  of 
the  nobles  at  the  court.  Such  was  the  state  of 
things  when  Cervantes  gave  to  the  world  the  First 
Part  of  his  Don  Quixote ;  and  it  was  against  prej¬ 
udices  which  had  so  long  bade  defiance  to  public 
opinion  and  the  law  itself  that  he  now  aimed  the 
delicate  shafts  of  his  irony.  It  was  a  perilous  em¬ 
prise. 

To  effect  his  end,  he  did  not  produce  a  mere  hu¬ 
morous  travesty,  like  several  of  the  Italian  poets, 
who,  having  selected  some  well-known  character  in 
romance,  make  him  fall  into  such  low  dialogue  and 
such  gross  buffoonery  as  contrast  most  ridiculously 


156  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

with  his  assumed  name;  for  this,  though  a  very  good 
jest  in  its  way,  was  but  a  jest,  and  Cervantes  want¬ 
ed  the  biting  edge  of  satire.  He  was,  besides,  too 
much  of  a  poet — was  too  deeply  penetrated  with 
the  true  spirit  of  chivalry  not  to  respect  the  noble 
qualities  which  were  the  basis  of  it.  He  shows  this 
in  the  auto  da  fe  of  the  Don’s  library,  where  he  spares 
the  Amadis  de  Gaula  and  some  others,  the  best  of 
their  kind.  He  had  once  himself,  as  he  tells  us,  ac¬ 
tually  commenced  a  serious  tale  of  chivalry. 

Cervantes  brought  forward  a  personage,  therefore, 
in  whom  were  imbodied  all  those  generous  virtues 
which  belong  to  chivalry  :  disinterestedness,  con¬ 
tempt  of  danger,  unblemished  honour,  knightly  cour¬ 
tesy,  and  those  aspirations  after  ideal  excellence 
which,  if  empty  dreams,  are  the  dreams  of  a  mag¬ 
nanimous  spirit.  They  are,  indeed,  represented  by 
Cervantes  as  too  ethereal  for  this  world,  and  are 
successively  dispelled  as  they  come  in  contact  w7ith 
the  coarse  realities  of  life.  It  is  this  view  of  the 
subject  which  has  led  Sismondi,  among  other  crit¬ 
ics,  to  consider  that  the  principal  end  of  the  author 
was  “the  ridicule  of  enthusiasm — the  contrast  of  the 
heroic  with  the  vulgar,”  and  he  sees  something  pro¬ 
foundly  sad  in  the  conclusions  to  which  it  leads. 
This  sort  of  criticism  appears  to  be  over-refined.  It 
resembles  the  efforts  of  some  commentators  to  alle¬ 
gorize  the  great  epics  of  Homer  and  Virgil,  throw¬ 
ing  a  disagreeable  mistiness  over  the  story  by  con¬ 
verting  mere  shadows  into  substances,  and  substan¬ 
ces  into  shadows. 


CERVANTES. 


157 


The  great  purpose  of  Cervantes  was,  doubtless, 
that  expressly  avowed  by  himself,  namely,  to  correct 
the  popular  taste  for  romances  of  chivalry.  It  is 
unnecessary  to  look  for  any  other  in  so  plain  a  tale, 
although,  it  is  true,  the  conduct  of  the  story  produ¬ 
ces  impressions  on  the  reader,  to  a  certain  extent, 
like  those  suggested  by  Sismondi.  The  melancholy 
tendency,  however,  is,  in  a  great  degree,  counteract¬ 
ed  by  the  exquisitely  ludicrous  character  of  the  in¬ 
cidents.  Perhaps,  after  all,  if  we  are  to  hunt  for  a 
moral  as  the  key  of  the  fiction,  we  may,  with  more 
reason,  pronounce  it  to  be  the  necessity  of  propor¬ 
tioning  our  undertakings  to  our  capacities. 

The  mind  of  the  hero,  Don  Quixote,  is  an  ideal 
world,  into  which  Cervantes  has  poured  all  the  rich 
stores  of  his  own  imagination,  the  poet’s  golden 
dreams,  high  romantic  exploit,  and  the  sweet  vis¬ 
ions  of  pastoral  happiness;  the  gorgeous  chimeras 
of  the  fancied  age  of  chivalry,  which  had  so  long 
entranced  the  world;  splendid  illusions,  which,  float¬ 
ing  before  us  like  the  airy  bubbles  which  the  child 
throws  off  from  his  pipe,  reflect,  in  a  thousand  va¬ 
riegated  tints,  the  rude  objects  around,  until,  brought 
into  collision  with  these,  they  are  dashed  in  pieces, 
and  melt  into  air.  These  splendid  images  derive 
tenfold  beauty  from  the  rich,  antique  colouring  of 
the  author’s  language,  skilfully  imitated  from  the  old 
romances,  but  which  necessarily  escapes  in  the  trans¬ 
lation  into  a  foreign  tongue.  Don  Quixote’s  insan¬ 
ity  operates  both  in  mistaking  the  ideal  for  the  real, 
and  the  real  for  the  ideal.  Whatever  he  has  found 


158  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

in  romances,  he  believes  to  exist  in  the  world ;  and 
he  converts  all  he  meets  with  in  the  world  into  the 
visions  of  his  romances.  It  is  difficult  to  say  which 
of  the  two  produces  the  most  ludicrous  results. 

For  the  better  exposure  of  these  mad  fancies, 
Cervantes  has  not  only  put  them  into  action  in  real 
life,  but  contrasted  them  with  another  character 
which  may  he  said  to  form  the  reverse  side  of  his 
hero’s.  Honest  Sancho  represents  the  material 
principle  as  perfectly  as  his  master  does  the  intel¬ 
lectual  or  ideal.  He  is  of  the  earth,  earthy.  Sly, 
selfish,  sensual,  his  dreams  are  not  of  glory,  but  of 
good  feeding.  His  only  concern  is  for  his  carcass. 
His  notions  of  honour  appear  to  be  much  the  same 
with  those  of  his  jovial  contemporary,  Falstaff,  as 
conveyed  in  his  memorable  soliloquy.  In  the  sub¬ 
lime  night-piece  which  ends  with  the  fulling-mills — 
truly  sublime  until  we  reach  the  denouement — San¬ 
cho  asks  his  master,  “  Why  need  you  go  about  this 
adventure  ?  It  is  main  dark,  and  there  is  never  a 
living  soul  sees  us ;  we  have  nothing  to  do  but  to 
sheer  off  and  get  out  of  harm’s  way.  Who  is  there 
to  take  notice  of  our  flinching  ?”  Can  anything  be 
imagined  more  exquisitely  opposed  to  the  true  spirit 
of  chivalry  ?  The  whole  compass  of  fiction  no¬ 
where  displays  the  power  of  contrast  so  forcibly  as 
in  these  two  characters :  perfectly  opposed  to  each 
other,  not  only  in  their  minds  and  general  habits, 
but  in  the  minutest  details  of  personal  appearance. 

It  was  a  great  effort  of  art  for  Cervantes  to  main¬ 
tain  the  dignity  of  his  hero’s  character  in  the  midst 


CERVANTES. 


159 


of  the  whimsical  and  ridiculous  distresses  in  which 
he  has  perpetually  involved  him.  His  infirmity 
leads  us  to  distinguish  between  his  character  and 
his  conduct,  and  to  absolve  him  from  all  responsi¬ 
bility  for  the  latter.  The  author’s  art  is  no  less 
shown  in  regard  to  the  other  principal  figure  in  the 
piece,  Sancho  Panza,  who,  with  the  most  contempt¬ 
ible  qualities,  contrives  to  keep  a  strong  hold  on  our 
interest  by  the  kindness  of  his  nature  and  his  shrewd 
understanding.  He  is  far  too  shrewd  a  person,  in¬ 
deed,  to  make  it  natural  for  him  to  have  followed  so 
crack-brained  a  master  unless  bribed  by  the  promise 
of  a  substantial  recompense.  He  is  a  personifica¬ 
tion,  as  it  were,  of  the  popular  wisdom — a  “  bundle 
of  proverbs,”  as  his  master  somewhere  styles  him ; 
and  proverbs  are  the  most  compact  form  in  which 
the  wisdom  of  a  people  is  digested.  They  have 
been  collected  into  several  distinct  works  in  Spain, 
where  they  exceed  in  number  those  of  any  other, 
if  not  every  other,  country  in  Europe.  As  many  of 
them  are  of  great  antiquity,  they  are  of  inestimable 
price  with  the  Castilian  purists,  as  affording  rich 
samples  of  obsolete  idioms  and  the  various  muta¬ 
tions  of  the  language. 

The  subordinate  portraits  in  the  romance,  though 
not  wrought  with  the  same  care,  are  admirable  stud¬ 
ies  of  national  character.  In  this  view,  the  Don 
Quixote  may  be  said  to  form  an  epoch  in  the  his¬ 
tory  of  letters,  as  the  original  of  that  kind  of  compo¬ 
sition,  the  Novel  of  Character,  which  is  one  of  the 
distinguishing  peculiarities  of  modern  literature. 


160  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

When  well  executed,  this  sort  of  writing  rises  to 
the  dignity  of  history  itself,  and  may  be  said  to  per¬ 
form  no  insignificant  part  of  the  functions  of  the 
latter.  History  describes  men  less  as  they  are  than 
as  they  appear,  as  they  are  playing  a  part  on  the 
great  political  theatre  —  men  in  masquerade.  It 
rests  on  state  documents,  which  too  often  cloak  real 
purposes  under  an  artful  veil  of  policy,  or  on  the  ac¬ 
counts  of  contemporaries  blinded  by  passion  or  in¬ 
terest.  Even  without  these  deductions,  the  revolu¬ 
tions  of  states,  their  wars,  and  their  intrigues  do  not 
present  the  only  aspect,  nor,  perhaps,  the  most  in¬ 
teresting  under  which  human  nature  can  be  studied. 
It  is  man  in  his  domestic  relations,  around  his  own 
fireside,  where  alone  his  real  character  can  be  truly 
disclosed ;  in  his  ordinary  occupations  in  society, 
whether  for  purposes  of  profit  or  of  pleasure  ;  in  his 
every-day  manner  of  living,  his  tastes  and  opinions, 
as  drawn  out  in  social  intercourse ;  it  is,  in  short, 
under  all  those  forms  which  make  up  the  interior  of 
society  that  man  is  to  be  studied,  if  we  would  get 
the  true  form  and  pressure  of  the  age — if,  in  short, 
we  would  obtain  clear  and  correct  ideas  of  the  ac¬ 
tual  progress  of  civilization. 

But  these  topics  do  not  fall  within  the  scope  of 
the  historian.  He  cannot  find  authentic  materials 
for  them.  They  belong  to  the  novelist,  who,  in¬ 
deed,  contrives  his  incidents  and  creates  his  charac¬ 
ters,  but  who,  if  true  to  his  art,  animates  them  with 
the  same  tastes,  sentiments,  and  motives  of  action 
which  belong  to  the  period  of  his  fiction.  His  por- 


CERVANTES. 


161 


trait  is  not  the  less  true  because  no  individual  has 
sat  for  it.  He  has  seized  the  physiognomy  of  the 
times.  Who  is  there  that  does  not  derive  a  more 
distinct  idea  of  the  state  of  society  and  manners  in 
Scotland  from  the  Waverley  novels  than  from  the 
best  of  its  historians  I  of  the  condition  of  the  Mid¬ 
dle  Ages,  from  the  single  romance  of  Ivanhoe,  than 
from  the  volumes  of  Hume  or  Hallam  1  In  like 
manner,  the  pencil  of  Cervantes  has  given  a  far 
more  distinct  and  a  richer  portraiture  of  life  in 
Spain  in  the  sixteenth  century  than  can  be  gather¬ 
ed  from  a  library  of  monkish  chronicles. 

Spain,  which  furnished  the  first  good  model  of 
this  kind  of  writing,  seems  to  have  possessed  more 
ample  materials  for  it  than  any  other  country  ex¬ 
cept  England.  This  is  perhaps  owing,  in  a  great 
degree,  to  the  freedom  and  originality  of  the  popular 
character.  It  is  the  country  where  the  lower  class¬ 
es  make  the  nearest  approach,  in  their  conversation* 
to  what  is  called  humour.  Many  of  the  national 
proverbs  are  seasoned  with  it,  as  well  as  the  picares- 
co  tales,  the  indigenous  growth  of  the  soil,  where, 
however,  the  humour  runs  rather  too  much  to  mere 
practical  jokes.  The  free  expansion  of  the  popular 
characteristics  may  be  traced,  in  part,  to  the  free¬ 
dom  of  the  political  institutions  of  the  country  be¬ 
fore  the  iron  hand  of  the  Austrian  dynasty  was  laid 
on  it.  The  long  wars  with  the  Moslem  invaders 
called  every  peasant  into  the  field,  and  gave  him  a 
degree  of  personal  consideration.  In  some  of  the 
provinces,  as  Catalonia,  the  Democratic  spirit  fre- 

X 


162  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

quently  rose  to  an  uncontrollable  height.  In  this 
free  atmosphere  the  rich  and  peculiar  traits  of  na¬ 
tional  character  were  unfolded.  The  territorial  di¬ 
visions  which  marked  the  Peninsula,  broken  up  an¬ 
ciently  into  a  number  of  petty  and  independent 
states,  gave,  moreover,  great  variety  to  the  national 
portraiture.  The  rude  Asturian,  the  haughty  and 
indolent  Castilian,  the  industrious  Aragonese,  the 
independent  Catalan,  the  jealous  and  wily  Andalu¬ 
sian,  the  effeminate  Yalencian,  and  magnificent  Gran- 
adine,  furnished  an  infinite  variety  of  character  and 
costume  for  the  study  of  the  artist.  The  intermix¬ 
ture  of  Asiatic  races,  to  an  extent  unknown  in  any 
other  European  land,  was  favourable  to  the  same 
result.  The  Jews  and  the  Moors  were  settled  in 
too  great  numbers,  and  for  too  many  centuries,  in 
the  land,  not  to  have  left  traces  of  their  Oriental 
civilization.  The  best  blood  of  the  country  has 
flowed  from  what  the  modern  Spaniard — the  Span¬ 
iard  of  the  Inquisition — regards  as  impure  sources ; 
and  a  work,  popular  in  the  Peninsula,  under  the 
name  of  Tizon  de  Espana ,  or  “  Brand  of  Spain,” 
maliciously  traces  back  the  pedigrees  of  the  noblest 
houses  in  the  kingdom  to  a  Jewish  or  Morisco  ori¬ 
gin.  All  these  circumstances  have  conspired  to 
give  a  highly  poetic  interest  to  the  character  of  the 
Spaniards ;  to  make  them,  in  fact,  the  most  pictu¬ 
resque  of  European  nations,  affording  richer  and  far 
more  various  subjects  for  the  novelist  than  other  na¬ 
tions  whose  peculiarities  have  been  kept  down  by 
the  weight  of  a  despotic  government,  or  the  artificial 
and  levelling  laws  of  fashion. 


CERVANTES. 


163 


There  is  one  other  point  of  view  in  which  the 
Don  Quixote  presents  itself,  that  of  its  didactic  im¬ 
port.  It  is  not  merely  moral  in  its  general  tendency, 
though  this  was  a  rare  virtue  in  the  age  in  which  it 
was  written,  but  is  replete  with  admonition  and  crit¬ 
icism,  oftentimes  requiring  great  boldness,  as  well  as 
originality,  in  the  author.  Such,  for  instance,  are 
the  derision  of  witchcraft,  and  other  superstitions 
common  to  the  Spaniards ;  the  ridicule  of  torture, 
which,  though  not  used  in  the  ordinary  courts,  was 
familiar  to  the  Inquisition ;  the  frequent  strictures 
on  various  departments  and  productions  of  literature. 
The  literary  criticism  scattered  throughout  the  work 
shows  a  profound  acquaintance  with  the  true  prin¬ 
ciples  of  taste  far  before  his  time,  and  which  has 
left  his  judgments  of  the  writings  of  his  countrymen 
still  of  paramount  authority.  In  truth,  the  great 
scope  of  his  work  was  didactic,  for  it  was  a  satire 
against  the  false  taste  of  his  age.  And  never  was 
there  a  satire  so  completely  successful.  The  last 
romance  of  chivalry,  before  the  appearance  of  the 
Don  Quixote,  came  out  in  1602.  It  was  the  last 
that  was  ever  published  in  Spain.  So  completely 
was  this  kind  of  writing,  which  had  bade  defiance 
to  every  serious  effort,  now  extinguished  by  the 
breath  of  ridicule, 

“  That  soft  and  summer  breath,  whose  subtile  power 
Passes  the  strength  of  storms  in  their  most  desolate  hour.” 

It  was  impossible  for  any  new  author  to  gain  an 
audience.  The  public  had  seen  how  the  thunder 
was  fabricated.  The  spectator  had  been  behind  the 


164  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

scenes,  and  witnessed  of  what  cheap  materials  kings 
and  queens  were  made.  It  was  impossible  for  him, 
by  any  stretch  of  imagination,  to  convert  the  tinsel 
and  painted  bawbles  which  he  had  seen  there  into 
diadems  and  sceptres.  The  illusion  had  fled  forever. 

Satire  seldom  survives  the  local  or  temporary  in¬ 
terests  against  which  it  is  directed.  It  loses  its  life 
with  its  sting.  The  satire  of  Cervantes  is  an  ex¬ 
ception.  The  objects  at  which  it  was  aimed  have 
long  since  ceased  to  interest.  The  modem  reader 
is  attracted  to  the  book  simply  by  its  execution  as 
a  work  of  art,  and,  from  want  of  previous  knowledge, 
comprehends  few  of  the  allusions'  which  gave  such 
infinite  zest  to  the  perusal  in  its  own  day.  Yet, 
under  all  these  disadvantages,  it  not  only  maintains 
its  popularity,  but  is  far  more  widely  extended,  and 
enjoys  far  higher  consideration,  than  in  the  life  of 
its  author.  Such  are  the  triumphs  of  genius  ! 

Cervantes  correctly  appreciated  his  own  work. 
He  more  than  once  predicted  its  popularity.  “  I  will 
lay  a  wager,”  says  Sancho,  “that  before  long  there 
will  not  be  a  chophouse,  tavern,  or  barber’s  stall 
but  will  have  a  painting  of  our  achievements.”  The 
honest  squire’s  prediction  was  verified  in  his  own 
day ;  and  the  author  might  have  seen  paintings  of 
his  wTork  on  wood  and  on  canvass,  as  well  as  cop¬ 
per-plate  engravings  of  it.  Besides  several  editions 
of  it  at  home,  it  was  printed,  in  his  own  time,  in 
Portugal,  Flanders,  and  Italy.  Since  that  period  it 
has  passed  into  numberless  editions  both  in  Spain 
and  other  countries.  It  has  been  translated  into 


CERVANTES. 


165 


nearly  every  European  tongue  over  and  over  again; 
into  English  ten  times,  into  French  eight,  and  others 
less  frequently.  We  will  close  the  present  notice 
with  a  brief  view  of  some  of  the  principal  editions, 
together  with  that  at  the  head  of  our  article. 

The  currency  of  the  romance  among  all  classes 
frequently  invited  its  publication  by  incompetent 
hands ;  and  the  consequence  was  a  plentiful  crop 
of  errors,  until  the  original  text  was  nearly  despoiled 
of  its  beauty,  while  some  passages  were  omitted,  and 
foreign  ones  still  more  shamefully  interpolated.  The 
first  attempt  to  retrieve  the  original  from  these  har¬ 
pies,  who  thus  foully  violated  it,  singularly  enough, 
was  made  in  England.  Queen  Caroline,  the  wife 
of  George  the  Second,  had  formed  a  collection  of 
books  of  romance,  which  she  playfully  named  the 
“  library  of  the  sage  Merlin/’  The  romance  of  Cer¬ 
vantes  alone  was  wanting;  and  a  nobleman,  Lord 
Carteret,  undertook  to  provide  her  with  a  suitable 
copy  at  his  own  expense.  This  was  the  origin  of 
the  celebrated  edition  published  by  Tonson,  in  Lon¬ 
don,  1738,  4  tom.  4to.  It  contained  the  Life  of  the 
Author,  written  for  it  by  the  learned  Mayans  y  Sis- 
car.  It  was  the  first  biography  (which  merits  the 
name)  of  Cervantes ;  and  it  shows  into  what  obliv¬ 
ion  his  personal  history  had  already  fallen,  that  no 
less  than  seven  towns  claimed  each  the  honour  of 
giving  him  birth.  The  fate  of  Cervantes  resembled 
that  of  Homer. 

The  example  thus  set  by  foreigners  excited  an 
honourable  emulation  at  home ;  and  at  length,  in 


166  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

1780,  a  magnificent  edition,  from  the  far-famed  press 
of  Ibarra,  was  published  at  Madrid,  in  4  tom.  4to, 
under  the  auspices  of  the  Royal  Spanish  Academy; 
which,  unlike  many  other  literary  bodies  of  sound¬ 
ing  name,  has  contributed  most  essentially  to  the 
advancement  of  letters,  not  merely  by  original  me¬ 
moirs,  but  by  learned  and  very  beautiful  editions  of 
ancient  writers.  Its  Don  Quixote  exhibits  a  most 
careful  revision  of  the  text,  collated  from  the  several 
copies  printed  in  the  authors  lifetime,  and  supposed 
to  have  received  his  own  emendations.  There  is 
too  good  reason  to  believe  that  these  corrections 
were  made  with  a  careless  hand ;  at  all  events,  there 
is  a  plentiful  harvest  of  typographical  blunders  in 
these  primitive  editions. 

Prefixed  to  the  publication  of  the  Academy  is  the 
Life  of  Cervantes,  by  Rios,  written  with  uncommon 
elegance,  and  containing  nearly  all  that  is  of  much 
interest  in  his  personal  history.  A  copious  analysis  ol 
the  romance  follows,  in  which  a  parallel  is  closely 
elaborated  between  it  and  the  poems  of  Homer.  But 
the  romantic  and  the  classical  differ  too  widely  from 
each  other  to  admit  of  such  an  approximation  ;  and 
the  method  of  proceeding  necessarily  involves  its 
author  in  infinite  absurdities,  which  show  an  entire 
ignorance  of  the  true  principles  of  philosophical 
criticism,  and  which  he  would  scarcely  have  fallen 
into  had  he  given  heed  to  the  maxims  of  Cervantes 
himself. 

In  the  following  year,  1781,  there  appeared  an¬ 
other  edition  in  England  deserving  of  particular 


CERVANTES. 


167 


notice.  It  was  prepared  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Bowie,  a 
clergyman  at  Idemestone,  who  was  so  enamoured 
of  the  romance  of  Cervantes,  that,  after  collecting  a 
library  of  such  works  as  could  any  way  illustrate  his 
author,  he  spent  fourteen  years  in  preparing  a  suit¬ 
able  commentary  on  him.  There  was  ample  scope 
for  such  a  commentary.  Many  of  the  satirical  al¬ 
lusions  of  the  romance  were  misunderstood,  as  we 
have  said,  owing  to  ignorance  of  the  books  of  chiv¬ 
alry  at  which  they  were  aimed.  Many  incidents 
and  usages,  familiar  to  the  age  of  Cervantes,  had 
long  since  fallen  into  oblivion  ;  and  much  of  the 
idiomatic  phraseology  had  grown  to  be  obsolete, 
and  required  explanation.  Cervantes  himself  had 
fallen  into  some  egregious  blunders,  which  in  his 
subsequent  revision  of  the  work  he  had  neglected 
to  set  right.  The  reader  will  readily  call  to  mind 
the  confusion  as  to  Sancho’s  Dapple,  who  appears 
and  disappears,  most  unaccountably,  on  the  scene, 
according  as  the  author  happens  to  remember  or 
forget  that  he  was  stolen.  He  afterward  corrected 
this  in  two  or  three  instances,  but  left  three  or  four 
others  unheeded.  To  the  same  account  must  be 
charged  numberless  gross  anachronisms.  Indeed, 
the  whole  Second  Part  is  an  anachronism,  since  the 
author  introduces  his  hero  criticising  his  First  Part, 
in  which  his  own  epitaph  is  recorded. 

Cervantes  seems  to  have  had  a  great  distaste  for 
the  work  of  revision.  Some  of  his  blunders  he  laid 
at  the  printer’s  door,  and  others  he  dismissed  with 
the  remark,  more  ingenious  than  true,  that  they 


168  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

were  like  moles,  which,  though  blemishes  in  them¬ 
selves,  add  to  the  beauty  of  the  countenance.  He 
little  dreamed  that  his  lapses  were  to  be  watched  so 
narrowly,  that  a  catalogue  was  actually  to  be  set 
down  of  all  his  repetitions  and  inconsistencies,  and 
that  each  of  his  hero’s  sallies  was  to  be  adjusted  by 
an  accurate  chronological  table  like  any  real  history. 
He  would  have  been  still  slower  to  believe  that  in 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  a  learned  so¬ 
ciety,  the  Academy  of  Literature  and  Fine  Arts  at 
Troyes,  in  Champagne,  should  have  chosen  a  depu¬ 
tation  of  their  body  to  visit  Spain  and  examine  the 
library  of  the  Escurial,  in  order  to  obtain,  if  possi¬ 
ble,  the  original  MS.  of  that  Arabian  sage  from  whom 
Cervantes  professed  to  have  translated  his  romance. 
This  was  to  be  more  mad  than  Don  Quixote  him¬ 
self  ;  yet  this  actually  happened. 

Bowie’s  edition  was  printed  in  six  volumes  quar¬ 
to ;  the  two  last  contained  notes,  illustrations,  and 
index,  all ,  as  well  as  the  text ,  in  Castilian.  Watt,  in 
his  laborious  “Bibliotheca  Britannica,”  remarks,  that 
the  book  did  not  come  up  to  the  public  expectation. 
If  so,  the  public  must  have  been  very  unreasonable. 
It  was  a  marvellous  achievement  for  a  foreigner.  It 
was  the  first  attempt  at  a  commentary  on  the  Quix¬ 
ote,  and,  although  doubtless  exhibiting  inaccuracies 
which  a  native  might  have  escaped,  has  been  a  rich 
mine  of  illustration,  from  which  native  critics  have 
helped  themselves  most  liberally,  and  sometimes  with 
scanty  acknowledgment. 

The  example  of  the  English  critic  led  to  similar 


CERVANTES. 


169 


labours  in  Spain,  among  the  most  successful  of  which 
may  be  mentioned  the  edition  by  Fellicer,  which  has 
commended  itself  to  every  scholar  by  its  very  learn¬ 
ed  disquisitions  on  many  topics  both  of  history  and 
criticism.  It  also  contains  a  valuable  memoir  of 
Cervantes,  whose  life  has  since  been  written  in  a 
manner  which  leaves  nothing  farther  to  be  desired 
by  Navarrete,  well  known  by  his  laborious  publica¬ 
tion  of  documents  relative  to  the  early  Spanish  dis¬ 
coveries.  His  biography  of  the  novelist  compre¬ 
hends  all  the  information,  direct  and  subsidiary, 
which  can  now  be  brought  together  for  the  eluci¬ 
dation  of  his  personal  or  literary  history.  If  Cer¬ 
vantes,  like  his  great  contemporary,  Shakspeare,  has 
left  few  authentic  details  of  his  existence,  the  defi¬ 
ciency  has  been  diligently  supplied  in  both  cases  by 
speculation  and  conjecture. 

There  was  still  wanting  a  classical  commentary 
on  the  Quixote  devoted  to  the  literary  execution  of 
the  work.  Such  a  commentary  has  at  length  ap¬ 
peared  from  the  pen  of  Clemencin,  the  accomplish¬ 
ed  secretary  of  the  Spanish  Academy  of  History, 
who  had  acquired  a  high  reputation  for  himself  by 
the  publication  of  the  sixth  volume  of  its  memoirs, 
the  exclusive  work  of  his  own  hand.  In  his  edition 
of  the  romance,  besides  illuminating  with  rare  learn¬ 
ing  many  of  the  obscure  points  in  the  narrative,  he 
has  accompanied  the  text  with  a  severe  but  enlight¬ 
ened  criticism,  which,  while  it  boldly  exposes  occa¬ 
sional  offences  against  taste  or  grammar,  directs  the 
eye  to  those  latent  beauties  which  might  escape  a 

Y 


170  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

rapid  or  an  ordinary  reader.  We  much  doubt  if 
any  Castilian  classic  has  been  so  ably  illustrated. 
Unfortunately,  the  First  Part  only  was  completed 
by  the  commentator,  who  died  very  recently.  It 
will  not  be  easy  to  find  a  critic  equally  qualified  by 
bis  taste  and  erudition  for  the  completion  of  the 
work. 

* 

The  English,  as  we  have  noticed,  have  evinced 
their  relish  for  Cervantes,  not  only  by  their  critical 
labours,  but  by  repeated  translations.  Some  of  these 
are  executed  with  much  skill,  considering  the  diffi¬ 
culty  of  correctly  rendering  the  idiomatic  phrase¬ 
ology  of  humorous  dialogue.  The  most  popular 
versions  are  those  of  Motteux,  Jarvis,  and  Smollett. 
Perhaps  the  first  is  the  best  of  all.  It  was  by  a 
Frenchman,  who  came  over  to  England  in  the  time 
of  James  the  Second.  It  betrays  nothing  of  its  for¬ 
eign  parentage,  however,  while  its  rich  and  racy 
diction  and  its  quaint  turns  of  expression  are  admi¬ 
rably  suited  to  convey  a  lively  and  very  faithful 
image  of  the  original.  The  slight  tinge  of  antiquity 
which  belongs  to  the  time  is  not  displeasing,  and 
comports  well  with  the  tone  of  knightly  dignity 
which  distinguishes  the  hero.  Lockhart’s  notes 
and  poetical  versions  of  old  Castilian  ballads,  ap¬ 
pended  to  the  recent  edition  of  Motteux,  have  ren¬ 
dered  it  by  far  the  most  desirable  translation.  It  is 
singular  that  the  first  classical  edition  of  Don  Quix¬ 
ote,  the  first  commentary,  and  probably  the  best  for¬ 
eign  translation,  should  have  been  all  produced  in 
England ;  and  farther,  that  the  English  commenta- 


CERVANTES. 


171 


tor  should  have  written  in  Spanish,  and  the  English 
translation  have  been  by  a  Frenchman. 

We  now  come  to  Mr.  Sales’s  recent  edition  of 
the  original,  the  first,  probably,  which  has  appeared 
in  the  New  World,  of  the  one  half  of  which  the 
Spanish  is  the  spoken  language.  There  was  great 
need  of  some  uniform  edition  to  meet  the  wants  of 
our  University,  where  much  inconvenience  has  been 
long  experienced  from  the  discrepancies  of  the  cop¬ 
ies  used.  The  only  ones  to  be  procured  in  this 
country  are  contemptible  both  in  regard  to  printing 
and  paper,  and  are  defaced  by  the  grossest  errors. 
They  are  the  careless  manufacture  of  ill-informed 
Spanish  booksellers,  made  to  sell,  and  dear  to  boot. 

Mr.  Sales  has  adopted  a  right  plan  for  remedying 
these  several  evils.  He  has  carefully  formed  his  text 
on  that  of  the  last  and  most  correct  edition  of  the 
Academy,  and  as  he  has  stereotyped  the  work,  any 
verbal  errors  may  be  easily  rectified.  The  Acade¬ 
my  has  substituted  the  modern  orthography  for  that 
of  Cervantes,  who,  independently  of  the  change  which 
has  gradually  taken  place  in  the  language,  seems  to 
have  had  no  uniform  system  himself.  Mr.  Sales 
has  conformed  to  the  rules  prescribed  by  this  high 
authority  for  regulating  his  orthography,  accent,  and 
punctuation.  In  some  instances,  only,  he  has  adopt¬ 
ed  the  ancient  usage  in  beginning  words  wTith  f  in¬ 
stead  of  h ,  and  retaining  obsolete  terminations  of 
verbs,  as  hablades  for  hablais ,  hablabades  for  liablabais, 
amades  for  amais ,  amabades  for  amabais ,  &c.,  no  doubt 
as  better  suited  to  the  lofty  tone  of  the  good  knight’s 


172  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

discourses,  who  himself  affected  a  reverence  for  the 
antique  in  his  conversation  to  which  his  translators 
have  not  always  sufficiently  attended. 

In  one  respect  the  present  editor  has  made  some 
alterations  not  before  attempted,  we  believe,  in  the 
text  of  his  original.  We  have  already  noticed  the 
inaccuracies  of  the  early  copies  of  the  Don  Quix¬ 
ote,  partly  imputable  to  Cervantes  himself,  and  in  a 
greater  degree,  doubtless,  to  his  printers.  There  is 
no  way  of  rectifying  such  errors  by  collation  with 
the  author’s  manuscript,  which  has  long  since  disap¬ 
peared.  All  that  can  now  be  done,  therefore,  is  to 
point  out  the  purer  reading  in  a  note,  as  Ciemencin, 
Arrieta,  and  other  commentators  have  done,  or,  as 
Mr.  Sales  has  preferred,  to  introduce  it  into  the  body 
of  the  text.  We  will  give  one  or  two  specimens  of 
these  alterations : 

“  Poco  mas  6  menos.” — Tom.  i.,  p.  141. 

The  reading  in  the  old  editions  is  “  poco  mas  a  me¬ 
nos,”  a  phrase  as  unintelligible  in  Spanish  now  as 
its  literal  translation  w7ould  be  in  English,  although 
in  use,  it  would  seem  from  other  authorities,  in  the 
age  of  Cervantes. 

Por  tales  os  juzgue  y  tuve.” — Tom.  i.,  p.  104. 

The  old  editions  add  “siempre,”  which  clearly  is  in¬ 
correct,  since  Don  Quixote  is  speaking  of  the  pres¬ 
ent  occasion. 

“  Don  Quijote  quedo  admirado.” — Tom.  i.,  p.  143. 

Other  editions  read  “El  cual  quedo,”  &c.  The  use 


CERVANTES. 


173 


of  the  relative  leaves  the  reader  in  doubt  who  is  in¬ 
tended,  and  Mr.  Sales,  in  conformity  to  Clemencin’s 
suggestion,  has  made  the  sentence  clear  by  substitu¬ 
ting  the  name  of  the  knight. 

“  Donde  les  sucedieron  cosas,”  &c. — Tom.  ii.,  p.  44. 

In  other  editions,  “sucedid bad  grammar,  since  it 
agrees  with  a  plural  noun. 

“En  tan  poco  espacio  de  tiempo  como  ha  que 
estuvo  alia,”  &c.  (tom.  ii.,  p.  132),  instead  of  “esta 
alia,”  clearly  the  wrong  tense,  since  the  verb  refers 
to  past  time. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  examples,  a  sufficient 
number  of  which  have  been  cited  to  show  on  what 
principles  the  emendations  have  been  made.  They 
have  been  confined  to  the  correction  of  such  viola¬ 
tions  of  grammar,  or  such  inaccuracies  of  expression, 
as  obscure  or  distort  the  meaning.  They  have  been 
made  with  great  circumspection,  and  in  obedience 
to  the  suggestion  of  the  highest  authorities  in  the 
language.  For  the  critical  scholar,  who  would  nat¬ 
urally  prefer  the  primitive  text  with  all  its  impurities, 
they  were  not  designed.  But  they  are  of  infinite 
value  to  the  general  reader  and  the  student,  who  may 
now  read  this  beautiful  classic  purified  from  those 
verbal  blemishes  which,  however  obvious  to  a  native, 
could  not  fail  to  mislead  a  foreigner. 

Besides  these  emendations,  Mr.  Sales  has  illustra¬ 
ted  the  work  by  prefixing  to  it  the  admirable  prelim¬ 
inary  discourse  of  Clemencin,  and  by  a  considerable 
body  of  notes,  selected  and  abridged  from  the  most 
approved  commentators;  and  as  the  object  has  been 


174  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

to  explain  the  text  to  the  reader,  not  to  involve  him 
in  antiquarian  or  critical  disquisitions,  when  his  au¬ 
thorities  have  failed  to  do  this,  the  editor  has  sup¬ 
plied  notes  of  his  own,  throwing  much  light  on  mat¬ 
ters  least  familiar  to  a  foreigner.  In  this  part  of  his 
work  we  think  he  might  have  derived  considerable 
aid  from  Bowie,  whom  he  does  not  appear  to  have 
consulted.  The  Castilian  commentator,  Arrieta, 
whom  he  liberally  uses,  is  largely  indebted  to  the 
English  critic,  who,  as  a  foreigner,  moreover,  has 
been  led  into  many  seasonable  explanations  that 
would  be  superfluous  to  a  Spaniard. 

We  may  notice  another  peculiarity  in  the  present 
edition,  that  of  breaking  up  the  text  into  reasonable 
paragraphs,  in  imitation  of  the  English  translations; 
a  great  relief  to  the  spirits  of  the  reader,  which  are 
seriously  damped,  in  the  ancient  copies,  by  the  in¬ 
terminable  waste  of  page  upon  page,  without  these 
convenient  halting-places. 

But  our  readers,  we  fear,  will  think  we  are  run¬ 
ning  into  an  interminable  waste  of  discussion.  We 
will  only  remark,  therefore,  in  conclusion,  that  the 
mechanical  execution  of  the  book  is  highly  credita- 
able  to  our  press.  It  is,  moreover,  adorned  with 
etchings  by  our  American  Cruikshank,  Johnston — 
some  of  them  original,  but  mostly  copies  from  the 
late  English  edition  of  Smollett’s  translations.  They 
are  designed  and  executed  with  much  spirit,  and,  no 
doubt,  would  have  fully  satisfied  honest  Sancho,  who 
predicted  this  kind  of  immortality  for  himself  and 
his  master. 


CERVANTES. 


175 


We  congratulate  the  public  on  the  possession  of 
an  edition  of  the  pride  of  Castilian  literature  from 
our  own  press,  in  so  neat  a  form,  and  executed  with 
so  much  correctness  and  judgment;  and  we  trust 
that  the  ambition  of  its  respectable  editor  will  be 
gratified  by  its  becoming,  as  it  well  deserves  to  be, 
the  manual  of  the  student  in  every  seminary  through¬ 
out  the  country  where  the  noble  Castilian  language 
is  taught. 


176  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.* 

APRIL,  1  838. 

There  is  no  kind  of  writing,  which  has  truth  and 
instruction  for  its  main  object,  so  interesting  and 
popular,  on  the  whole,  as  biography.  History,  in 
its  larger  sense,  has  to  deal  with  masses,  which,  while 
they  divide  the  attention  by  the  dazzling  variety  of 
objects,  from  their  very  generality  are  scarcely  ca¬ 
pable  of  touching  the  heart.  The  great  objects  on 
which  it  is  employed  have  little  relation  to  the  daily 
occupations  with  which  the  reader  is  most  intimate. 
A  nation,  like  a  corporation,  seems  to  have  no  soul, 
and  its  checkered  vicissitudes  may  be  contemplated 
rather  with  curiosity  for  the  lessons  they  convey 
than  with  personal  sympathy.  How  different  are 
the  feelings  excited  by  the  fortunes  of  an  individual 
— one  of  the  mighty  mass,  who  in  the  page  of  his¬ 
tory  is  sw^ept  along  the  current  unnoticed  and  un¬ 
known  !  Instead  of  a  mere  abstraction,  at  once  we 
see  a  being  like  ourselves,  “  fed  with  the  same  food, 
hurt  with  the  same  weapons,  subject  to  the  same 
diseases,  healed  by  the  same  means,  warmed  and 
cooled  by  the  same  winter  and  summer”  as  we  are. 
We  place  ourselves  in  his  position,  and  see  the 
passing  current  of  events  with  the  same  eyes.  We 

*  1.  “Memoirs  of  the  Life  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Bart.,  by  J.  G.  Lock¬ 
hart.  Five  vols.  12mo.  Boston :  Otis,  Broaders,  &  Co.,  1837.” 

2.  “Recollections  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Bart.,  16mo.  London  :  James 
Fraser,  1837.” 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


177 


become  a  party  to  all  his  little  schemes,  share  in  his 
triumphs,  or  mourn  with  him  in  the  disappointment 
of  defeat.  His  friends  become  our  friends.  We 
learn  to  take  an  interest  in  their  characters  from 
their  relation  to  him.  As  they  pass  away  from  the 
stage  one  after  another,  and  as  the  clouds  of  mis¬ 
fortune,  perhaps,  or  of  disease,  settle  around  the 
evening  of  his  own  day,  we  feel  the  same  sadness 
that  steals  over  us  on  a  retrospect  of  earlier  and 
happier  hours.  And  when  at  last  we  have  followed 
him  to  the  tomb,  we  close  the  volume,  and  feel  that 
we  have  turned  over  another  chapter  in  the  history 
of  life. 

On  the  same  principles,  probably,  we  are  more 
moved  by  the  exhibition  of  those  characters  whose 
days  have  been  passed  in  the  ordinary  routine  of 
domestic  and  social  life  than  by  those  most  inti¬ 
mately  connected  with  the  great  public  events  of 
their  age.  What,  indeed,  is  the  history  of  such- 
men  but  that  of  the  times?  The  life  of  Welling¬ 
ton  or  of  Bonaparte  is  the  story  of  the  wars  and 
revolutions  of  Europe.  But  that  of  Cowper,  gliding 
away  in  the  seclusion  of  rural  solitude,  reflects  all 
those  domestic  joys,  and,  alas !  more  than  the  sor¬ 
rows,  which  gather  around  every  man’s  fireside  and 
his  heart.  In  this  way  the  story  of  the  humblest 
individual,  faithfully  recorded,  becomes  an  object  of 
lively  interest.  How  much  is  that  interest  increas¬ 
ed  in  the  case  of  a  man  like  Scott,  who,  from  his 
own  fireside,  has  sent  forth  a  voice  to  cheer  and 
delight  millions  of  his  fellow-men ;  whose  life  was 

Z 


178  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

passed  within  the  narrow  circle  of  his  own  village, 
as  it  were,  but  who,  nevertheless,  has  called  up  more 
shapes  and  fantasies  within  that  magic  circle,  acted 
more  extraordinary  parts,  and  afforded  more  marvels 
for  the  imagination  to  feed  on,  than  can  be  furnish¬ 
ed  by  the  most  nimble-footed,  nimble-tongued  trav¬ 
eller,  from  Marco  Polo  down  to  Mrs.  Trollope,  and 
that  literary  Sinbad,  Captain  Hall. 

Fortunate  as  Sir  Walter  Scott  was  in  his  life,  it 
is  not  the  least  of  his  good  fortunes  that  he  left  the 
task  of  recording  it  to  one  so  competent  as  Mr. 
Lockhart,  who,  to  a  familiarity  with  the  person 
and  habits  of  his  illustrious  subject,  unites  such  en¬ 
tire  sympathy  with  his  pursuits,  and  such  fine  tact 
and  discrimination  in  arranging  the  materials  for 
their  illustration.  We  have  seen  it  objected  that 
the  biographer  has  somewhat  transcended  his  law¬ 
ful  limits  in  occasionally  exposing  what  a  nice  ten¬ 
derness  for  the  reputation  of  Scott  should  have  led 
him  to  conceal  ;  but,  on  reflection,  we  are  not 
inclined  to  adopt  these  views.  It  is  difficult  to 
prescribe  any  precise  rule  by  which  the  biographer 
should  be  guided  in  exhibiting  the  peculiarities,  and, 
still  more,  the  defects  of  his  subject.  He  should, 
doubtless,  be  slow  to  draw  from  obscurity  those 
matters  which  are  of  a  strictly  personal  and  private 
nature,  particularly  when  they  have  no  material 
bearing  on  the  character  of  the  individual.  But 
whatever  the  latter  has  done,  said,  or  written  to 
others  can  rarely  be  made  to  come  within  this  rule. 
A  swell  of  panegyric,  where  everything  is  in  broad 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


179 


sunshine,  without  the  relief  of  a  shadow  to  contrast 
it,  is  out  of  nature,  and  must  bring  discredit  on  the 
whole.  Nor  is  it  much  better  when  a  sort  of  twi¬ 
light  mystification  is  spread  over  a  man’s  actions, 
until,  as  in  the  case  of  all  biographies  of  Cowper 
previous  to  that  of  Southey,  we  are  completely  be¬ 
wildered  respecting  the  real  motives  of  conduct.  If 
ever  there  was  a  character  above  the  necessity  of 
any  management  of  this  sort,  it  was  Scott’s  ;  and 
we  cannot  but  think  that  the  frank  exposition  of  the 
minor  blemishes  which  sully  it,  by  securing  the  con¬ 
fidence  of  the  reader  in  the  general  fidelity  of  the 
portraiture,  and  thus  disposing  him  to  receive,  with¬ 
out  distrust,  those  favourable  statements  in  his  his¬ 
tory  which  might  seem  incredible,  as  they  certainly 
are  unprecedented,  is,  on  the  whole,  advantageous 
to  his  reputation.  As  regards  the  moral  effect  on 
the  reader,  we  may  apply  Scott’s  own  argument  for 
not  always  recompensing  suffering  virtue,  at  the 
close  of  his  fictions,  with  temporal  prosperity — that 
such  an  arrangement  would  convey  no  moral  to 
the  heart  whatever,  since  a  glance  at  the  great 
picture  of  life  would  show  that  virtue  is  not  always 
thus  rewarded. 

In  regard  to  the  literary  execution  of  Mr.  Lock¬ 
hart’s  work,  the  public  voice  •  has  long  since  pro¬ 
nounced  on  it.  A  prying  criticism  may  discern  a 
few  of  those  contraband  epithets  and  slipshod  sen¬ 
tences,  more  excusable  in  young  “  Peter’s  Letters  to 
his  Kinsfolk,”  where,  indeed,  they  are  thickly  sown, 
than  in  the  production  of  a  grave  Aristarch  of 


180  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

British  criticism.  But  this  is  small  game,  where 
every  reader  of  the  least  taste  and  sensibility  must 
find  so  much  to  applaud.  It  is  enough  to  say,  that 
in  passing  from  the  letters  of  Scott,  with  which  the 
work  is  enriched,  to  the  text  of  the  biographer,  we 
find  none  of  those  chilling  transitions  which  occur 
on  the  like  occasions  in  more  bungling  productions; 
as,  for  example,  in  that  recent  one  in  which  the  un¬ 
fortunate  Hannah  More  is  done  to  death  by  her 
friend  Roberts.  On  the  contrary,  we  are  sensible 
only  to  a  new  variety  of  beauty  in  the  style  of  com¬ 
position.  The  correspondence  is  illumined  by  all 
that  is  needed  to  make  it  intelligible  to  a  stranger, 
and  selected  with  such  discernment  as  to  produce 
the  clearest  impression  of  the  character  of  its  author. 
The  mass  of  interesting  details  is  conveyed  in  lan¬ 
guage,  richly  coloured  with  poetic  sentiment,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  without  a  tinge  of  that  mysticism 
which,  as  Scott  himself  truly  remarked,  “  will  never 
do  for  a  writer  of  fiction,  no,  nor  of  history,  nor 
moral  essays,  nor  sermons  but  which,  nevertheless, 
finds  more  or  less  favour  in  our  own  community, 
at  the  present  day,  in  each  and  all  of  these. 

The  second  work  which  we  have  placed  at  the 
head  of  this  article,  and  from  which  the  last  remark 
of  Sir  Walter’s  was  borrowed,  is  a  series  of  notices 
originally  published  in  “  Fraser’s  Magazine,”  but 
now  collected,  with  considerable  additions,  into  a 
separate  volume.  Its  author,  Mr.  Robert  Pierce  Gil¬ 
lies,  is  a  gentleman  of  the  Scotch  bar,  favourably 
known  by  translations  from  the  German.  The 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


181 


work  conveys  a  lively  report  of  several  scenes  and 
events,  which,  before  the  appearance  of  Lockhart’s 
book,  were  of  more  interest  and  importance  than 
they  can  now  be,  lost,  as  they  are,  in  the  flood  of 
light  which  is  poured  on  us  from  that  source.  In 
the  absence  of  the  sixth  and  last  volume,  however, 
Mr.  Gillies  may  help  us  to  a  few  particulars  respect¬ 
ing  the  closing  years  of  Sir  Walter’s  life,  that  may 
have  some  novelty — we  know  not  how  much  to  be 
relied  on — for  the  reader.  In  the  present  notice  of 
a  work  so  familiar  to  most  persons,  we  shall  confine 
ourselves  to  some  of  those  circumstances  which 
contribute  to  form,  or  have  an  obvious  connexion 
with,  his  literary  character. 

Walter  Scott  was  born  at  Edinburgh,  August 
15th,  1771.  The  character  of  his  father,  a  respect¬ 
able  member  of  that  class  of  attorneys  who  in  Scot¬ 
land  are  called  Writers  to  the  Signet,  is  best  con¬ 
veyed  to  the  reader  by  saying  that  he  sat  for  the 
portrait  of  Mr.  Saunders  Fairford  in  “  Redgauntlet.  ” 
His  mother  was  a  woman  of  taste  and  imagination, 
and  had  an  obvious  influence  in  guiding  those  of 
her  son.  His  ancestors,  by  both  father’s  and  moth¬ 
er’s  side,  were  of  “  gentle  blood,”  a  position  which, 
placed  between  the  highest  and  the  lower  ranks  in 
society,  was  extremely  favourable,  as  affording  facil¬ 
ities  for  communication  with  both.  A  lameness  in 
his  infancy  —  a  most  fortunate  lameness  for  the 
world,  if,  as  Scott  says,  it  spoiled  a  soldier — and  a 
delicate  constitution,  made  it  expedient  to  try  the 
efficacy  of  country  air  and  diet,  and  he  was  placed 


182  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

under  the  roof  of  his  paternal  grandfather  at  Sandy- 
Knowe,  a  few  miles  distant  from  the  capital.  Here 
his  days  were  passed  in  the  open  fields,  “  with  no 
other  fellowship,”  as  he  says,  “  than  that  of  the 
sheep  and  lambs and  here,  in  the  lap  of  Nature, 

“  Meet  nurse  for  a  poetic  child,” 

his  infant  vision  was  greeted  with  those  rude,  ro¬ 
mantic  scenes  which  his  own  verses  have  since  hal¬ 
lowed  for  the  pilgrims  from  every  clime.  In  the 
long  evenings,  his  imagination,  as  he  grew  older, 
was  warmed  by  traditionary  legends  of  border  hero¬ 
ism  and  adventure,  repeated  by  the  aged  relative, 
who  had  herself  witnessed  the  last  gleams  of  border 
chivalry.  His  memory  was  one  of  the  first  powers 
of  his  mind  which  exhibited  an  extraordinary  devel¬ 
opment.  One  of  the  longest  of  these  old  ballads,  in 
particular,  stuck  so  close  to  it,  and  he  repeated  it 
with  such  stentorian  vociferation,  as  to  draw  from 
the  minister  of  a  neighbouring  kirk  the  testy  excla¬ 
mation,  “  One  may  as  well  speak  in  the  mouth  of  a 
cannon  as  where  that  child  is.” 

On  his  removal  to  Edinburgh,  in  his  eighth  year, 
he  was  subjected  to  different  influences.  His  wor¬ 
thy  father  was  a  severe  martinet  in  all  the  forms  of 
his  profession,  and,  it  may  be  added,  of  his  religion, 
which  he  contrived  to  make  somewhat  burdensome 
to  his  more  volatile  son.  The  tutor  was  still  more 
strict  in  his  religious  sentiments,  and  the  lightest  lit¬ 
erary  diversion  in  which  either  of  them  indulged 
was  such  as  could  be  gleaned  from  the  time-honour¬ 
ed  folios  of  Archbishop  Spottiswoode  or  worthy 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


183 


Robert  Wodrow.  Even  lieve,  however,  Scott’s 
young  mind  contrived  to  gather  materials  and  im¬ 
pulses  for  future  action.  In  his  long  arguments  with 
Master  Mitchell,  he  became  steeped  in  the  history 
of  the  Covenanters  and  the  persecuted  Church  of 
Scotland,  while  he  was  still  more  rooted  in  his  own 
Jacobite  notions,  early  instilled  into  his  mind  by  the 
tales  of  his  relatives  of  Sandy-Knowe,  whose  own 
family  had  been  out  in  the  “  affair  of  forty-five.” 
Amid  the  professional  and  polemical  worthies  of  his 
father’s  library,  Scott  detected  a  copy  of  Shakspeare, 
and  he  relates  with  what  gout  he  used  to  creep  out 
of  his  bed,  where  he  had  been  safely  deposited  for 
the  night,  and,  by  the  light  of  the  fire,  in  puris  natu- 
ralibus,  pore  over  the  pages  of  the  great  magician, 
and  study  those  mighty  spells  by  which  he  gave  to 
airy  fantasies  the  forms  and  substance  of  humanity. 
Scott  distinctly  recollected  the  time  and  the  spot 
where  he  first  opened  a  volume  of  Percy’s  “  Rel- 
iques  of  English  Poetry a  work  which  may  have 
suggested  to  him  the  plan  and  the  purpose  of  the 
“Border  Minstrelsy.”  Every  day’s  experience  shows 
how  much  more  actively  the  business  of  education 
goes  on  out  of  school  than  in  it ;  and  Scott’s  his¬ 
tory  shows  equally  that  genius,  whatever  obstacles 
may  be  thrown  in  its  way  in  one  direction,  will  find 
room  for  its  expansion  in  another,  as  the  young 
tree  sends  forth  its  shoots  most  prolific  in  that  quar¬ 
ter  where  the  sunshine  is  permitted  to  fall  on  it. 

At  the  High  School,  in  which  he  was  placed  by 
his  father  at  an  early  period,  he  seems  not  to  have 


184  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

been  particularly  distinguished  in  the  regular  course 
of  studies.  His  voracious  appetite  for  hooks,  how¬ 
ever,  of  a  certain  cast,  as  romances,  chivalrous  tales, 
and  worm-eaten  chronicles  scarcely  less  chivalrous, 
and  his  wonderful  memory  for  such  reading  as  struck 
his  fancy,  soon  made  him  regarded  hy  his  fellows  as 
a  phenomenon  of  black-letter  scholarship,  which,  in 
process  of  time,  achieved  for  him  the  cognomen  of 
that  redoubtable  schoolman,  Duns  Scotus.  He  now 
also  gave  evidence  of  his  powers  of  creation  as  well 
as  of  acquisition.  He  became  noted  for  his  own 
stories,  generally  bordering  on  the  marvellous,  with 
a  plentiful  seasoning  of  knight-errantry,  which  suited 
his  bold  and  chivalrous  temper.  “  Slink  over  beside 
me,  Jamie,”  he  would  whisper  to  his  schoolfellow 
Ballantyne,  “and  I’ll  tell  you  a  story.”  Jamie  was, 
indeed,  destined  to  sit  beside  him  during  the  greater 
part  of  his  life. 

The  same  tastes  and  talents  continued  to  display 
themselves  more  strongly  with  increasing  years. 
Having  beaten  pretty  thoroughly  the  ground  of  ro¬ 
mantic  and  legendary  lore,  at  least  so  far  as  the 
English  libraries  to  which  he  had  access  would  per¬ 
mit,  he  next  endeavoured,  while  at  the  University, 
to  which  he  had  been  transferred  from  the  High 
School,  to  pursue  the  same  subject  in  the  Continent¬ 
al  languages.  Many  were  the  strolls  which  he  took 
in  the  neighbourhood,  especially  to  Arthur’s  Seat 
and  Salisbury  Crags,  where,  perched  on  some  almost 
inaccessible  eyry,  he  might  be  seen  conning  over 
his  Ariosto  or  Cervantes,  or  some  other  bard  of  ro- 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


185 


mance,  with  some  favourite  companion  of  his  stud¬ 
ies,  or  pouring  into  the  ears  of  the  latter  his  own 
boyish  legends,  glowing  with 

“  achievements  high, 

And  circumstance  of  chivalry.” 

A  critical  knowledge  of  these  languages  he  seems 
not  to  have  obtained,  and  even  in  the  French 
made  but  an  indifferent  figure  in  conversation.  An 
accurate  acquaintance  with  the  pronunciation  and 
prosody  of  a  foreign  tongue  is  undoubtedly  a  de¬ 
sirable  accomplishment ;  but  it  is,  after  all,  a  mere 
accomplishment  subordinate  to  the  great  purposes 
for  which  a  language  is  to  be  learned.  Scott  did  not, 
as  is  too  often  the  case,  mistake  the  shell  for  the 
kernel.  He  looked  on  language  only  as  the  key  to 
unlock  the  foreign  stores  of  wisdom,  the  pearls  of 
inestimable  price,  wherever  found,  with  which  to  en¬ 
rich  his  native  literature. 

After  a  brief  residence  at  the  University,  he  was 
regularly  indented  as  an  apprentice  to  his  father  in 
1786.  One  can  hardly  imagine  a  situation  less  con¬ 
genial  with  the  ardent,  effervescing  spirit  of  a  poetic 
fancy,  fettered  down  to  a  daily  routine  of  drudgery 
scarcely  above  that  of  a  mere  scrivener.  It  proved, 
however,  a  useful  school  of  discipline  to  him.  It 
formed  early  habits  of  method,  punctuality,  and  la¬ 
borious  industry  ;  business  habits,  in  short,  most  ad¬ 
verse  to  the  poetic  temperament,  but  indispensable 
to  the  accomplishment  of  the  gigantic  tasks  which 
he  afterward  assumed.  He  has  himself  borne  testi¬ 
mony  to  his  general  diligence  in  his  new  vocation,  and 

A  A 


186  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

tells  us  that  on  one  occasion  he  transcribed  no  less 
than  a  hundred  and  twenty  folio  pages  at  a  sitting. 

In  the  midst  of  these  mechanical  duties,  he  did 
not  lose  sight  of  the  favourite  objects  of  his  study 
and  meditation.  He  made  frequent  excursions  into 
the  Lowland  as  well  as  Highland  districts  in  search 
of  traditionary  relics.  These  pilgrimages  he  fre¬ 
quently  performed  on  foot.  His  constitution,  now 
become  hardy  by  severe  training,  made  him  care¬ 
less  of  exposure,  and  his  frank  and  warm-hearted 
manners — eminently  favourable  to  his  purposes,  by 
thawing  at  once  any  feelings  of  frosty  reserve  which 
might  have  encountered  a  stranger  —  made  him 
equally  welcome  at  the  staid  and  decorous  manse, 
and  at  the  rough  but  hospitable  board  of  the  peas¬ 
ant.  Here  was,  indeed,  the  study  of  the  future  nov¬ 
elist;  the  very  school  in  which  to  meditate  those 
models  of  character  and  situation  which  he  was  af¬ 
terward,  long  afterward,  to  transfer,  in  such  living 
colours,  to  the  canvass.  “  He  was  makin  himsell 
a’  the  time,”  says  one  of  his  companions,  “  but  he 
didna  ken,  maybe,  what  he  was  about  till  years  had 
passed.  At  first  he  thought  o’  little,  I  dare  say,  but 
the  queerness  and  the  fun.”  The  honest  writer  to 
the  signet  does  not  seem  to  have  thought  it  either 
so  funny  or  so  profitable ;  for  on  his  son’s  return 
from  one  of  these  raids,  as  he  styled  them,  the  old 
gentleman  peevishly  inquired  how  he  had  been  liv¬ 
ing  so  long.  “Pretty  much  like  the  young  ravens,” 
answered  Walter;  “I  only  wished  I  had  been  as 
good  a  player  on  the  flute  as  poor  George  Primrose 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


187 


in  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield.  If  I  had  his  art,  I  should 
like  nothing  better  than  to  tramp  like  him  from  cot¬ 
tage  to  cottage  over  the  world.”  “I  doubt,”  said 
the  grave  clerk  to  the  signet,  “  I  greatly  doubt,  sir, 
you  were  born  for  nae  better  than  a  gangrei  scrape- 
gut  /”  Perhaps  even  the  revelation,  could  it  have 
been  made  to  him,  of  his  son’s  future  literary  glory, 
would  scarcely  have  satisfied  the  worthy  father,  who, 
probably,  would  have  regarded  a  seat  on  the  bench 
of  the  Court  of  Sessions  as  much  higher  glory.  At 
all  events,  this  was  not  far  from  the  judgment  of 
Dominie  Mitchell,  who,  in  his  notice  of  his  illustri¬ 
ous  pupil,  “sincerely  regrets  that  Sir  Walter’s  pre¬ 
cious  time  was  devoted  to  the  dulce  rather  than  the 
utile  of  composition,  and  that  his  great  talents  should 
have  been  wasted  on  such  subjects  !” 

It  is  impossible  to  glance  at  Scott’s  early  life 
without  perceiving  how  powerfully  all  its  circum 
stances,  whether  accidental  or  contrived,  conspired 
to  train  him  for  the  peculiar  position  he  was  des¬ 
tined  to  occupy  in  the  world  of  letters.  There  nev¬ 
er  was  a  character  in  whose  infant  germ  the  mature 
and  fully-developed  lineaments  might  be  more  dis¬ 
tinctly  traced.  What  he  was  in  his  riper  age,  so 
he  was  in  his  boyhood.  We  discern  the  same  tastes, 
the  same  peculiar  talents,  the  same  social  temper  and 
affections,  and,  in  a  great  degree,  the  same  habits — 
in  their  embryo  state,  of  course,  but  distinctly  mark¬ 
ed — and  his  biographer  has  shown  no  little  skill  in 
enabling  us  to  trace  their  gradual,  progressive  ex¬ 
pansion,  from  the  hour  of  his  birth  up  to  the  full 
prime  and  maturity  of  manhood. 


188  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

In  1792,  Scott,  whose  original  destination  of  a 
writer  had  been  changed  to  that  of  an  advocate — 
from  his  father’s  conviction,  as  it  would  seem,  of  the 
superiority  of  his  talents  to  the  former  station — was 
admitted  to  the  Scottish  bar.  Here  he  continued 
in  assiduous  attendance  during  the  regular  terms, 
but  more  noted  for  his  stories  in  the  Outer  House 
than  his  arguments  in  court.  It  may  appear  sin¬ 
gular,  that  a  person  so  gifted,  both  as  a  writer  and 
as  a  raconteur ,  should  have  had  no  greater  success 
in  his  profession.  But  the  case  is  not  uncommon. 
Indeed,  experience  shows  that  the  most  eminent 
writers  have  not  made  the  most  successful  speakers. 
It  is  not  more  strange  than  that  a  good  writer  of 
novels  should  not  excel  as  a  dramatic  author.  Per¬ 
haps  a  consideration  of  the  subject  would  lead  us  to 
refer  the  phenomena  in  both  cases  to  the  same  prin¬ 
ciple.  At  all  events,  Scott  was  an  exemplification 
of  both,  and  we  leave  the  solution  to  those  who 
have  more  leisure  and  ingenuity  to  unravel  the  mys¬ 
tery. 

Scott’s  leisure,  in  the  mean  time,  was  well  employ¬ 
ed  in  storing  his  mind  with  German  romance,  with 
whose  wild  fictions,  intrenching  on  the  grotesque, 
he  found  at  that  time  more  sympathy  than  in  later 
life.  In  1796  he  first  appeared  before  the  public  as 
a  translator  of  Burger’s  well-known  ballads,  thrown 
off  by  him  at  a  heat,  and  which  found  favour  with 
the  few  into  whose  hands  they  passed.  He  subse¬ 
quently  adventured  in  Monk  Lewis’s  crazy  bark, 
“Tales  of  Wonder,”  which  soon  went  to  pieces, 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


189 


leaving,  however,  among  its  surviving  fragments  the 
scattered  contributions  of  Scott. 

At  last,  in  1802,  he  gave  to  the  world  his  first  two 
volumes  of  the  “  Border  Minstrelsy,”  printed  by  his 
old  schoolfellow  JJallantyne,  and  which,  by  the  beau¬ 
ty  of  the  typography,  as  well  as  literary  execution, 
made  an  epoch  in  Scottish  literary  history.  There 
was  no  work  of  Scott’s  after  life  which  showed  the 
result  of  so  much  preliminary  labour.  Before  ten 
years  old,  he  had  collected  several  volumes  of  bal¬ 
lads  and  traditions,  and  we  have  seen  how  diligent¬ 
ly  he  pursued  the  same  vocation  in  later  years. 
The  publication  was  admitted  to  be  far  more  faith¬ 
ful,  as  well  as  skilfully  collated,  than  its  prototype, 
the  “  Reliques”  of  Bishop  Percy ;  while  his  notes 
contained  a  mass  of  antiquarian  information  relative 
to  border  life,  conveyed  in  a  style  of  beauty  unpre¬ 
cedented  in  topics  of  this  kind,  and  enlivenod  with 
a  higher  interest  than  poetic  fiction.  Percy’s  “  Rel- 
iques”  had  prepared  the  way  for  the  kind  reception 
of  the  “  Minstrelsy,”  by  the  general  relish— notwith¬ 
standing  Dr.  Johnson’s  protest — it  had  created  for 
the  simple  pictures  of  a  pastoral  and  heroic  time. 
Burns  had  since  familiarized  the  English  ear  with 
the  Doric  melodies  of  his  native  land ;  and  now  a 
greater  than  Burns  appeared,  whose  first  production, 
by  a  singular  chance,  came  into  the  world  in  the  very 
year  in  which  the  Ayrshire  minstrel  was  withdrawn 
from  it,  as  if  Nature  had  intended  that  the  chain  of 
poetic  inspiration  should  not  be  broken.  The  de¬ 
light  of  the  public  was  farther  augmented  on  the  ap- 


190  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

pearance  of  the  third  volume  of  the  “  Minstrelsy,” 
containing  various  imitations  of  the  old  ballad,  which 
displayed  the  rich  fashion  of  the  antique,  purified 
from  the  mould  and  rust  by  which  the  beauties  of 
such  weather-beaten  trophies  are  defaced. 

The  first  edition  of  the  “  Minstrelsy,”  consisting 
of  eight  hundred  copies,  went  off,  as  Lockhart  tells 
us,  in  less  than  a  year ;  and  the  poet,  on  the  publi¬ 
cation  of  a  second,  received  five  hundred  pounds 
sterling  from  Longman — an  enormous  price  for  such 
a  commodity,  but  the  best  bargain,  probably,  that 
the  bookseller  ever  made,  as  the  subsequent  sale  has 
since  extended  to  twenty  thousand  copies. 

Scott  was  not  in  great  haste  to  follow  up  his  suc¬ 
cess.  It  was  three  years  later  before  he  took  the 
field  as  an  independent  author,  in  a  poem  which  at 
once  placed  him  among  the  great  original  writers 
of  his  country.  The  “Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,” 
a  complete  expansion  of  the  ancient  ballad  into  an 
epic  form,  was  published  in  1805.  It  was  opening 
a  new  creation  in  the  realm  of  fancy.  It  seemed  as 
if  the  author  had  transfused  into  his  page  the  strong 
delineations  of  the  Homeric  pencil,  the  rude,  but 
generous  gallantry  of  a  primitive  period,  softened  by 
the  more  airy  and  magical  inventions  of  Italian  ro¬ 
mance,*  and  conveyed  in  tones  of  natural  melody, 
such  as  had  not  been  heard  since  the  strains  of 

*  “  Mettendo  lo  Turpin,  lo  metto  anch’  io,” 
says  Ariosto,  playfully,  when  he  tells  a  particularly  tough  story. 

“  I  cannot  tell  how  the  truth  may  he, 

I  say  the  tale  as  ’twas  said  to  me,” 

says  the  author  of  the  “  Lay”  on  a  similar  occasion.  The  resemblance 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


191 


Burns.  The  book  speedily  found  that  unprecedent¬ 
ed  circulation  which  all  his  subsequent  compositions 
attained.  Other  writers  had  addressed  themselves 
to  a  more  peculiar  and  limited  feeling;  to  a  nar¬ 
rower,  and,  generally,  a  more  select  audience.  But 
Scott  was  found  to  combine  all  the  qualities  of  in¬ 
terest  for  every  order.  He  drew  from  the  pure 
springs  which  gush  forth  in  every  heart.  His  nar¬ 
rative  chained  every  reader’s  attention  by  the  stir¬ 
ring  variety  of  its  incidents,  while  the  fine  touches 
of  sentiment  with  which  it  abounded,  like  wild  flow¬ 
ers,  springing  up  spontaneously  around,  were  full  of 
freshness  and  beauty,  that  made  one  wonder  others 
should  not  have  stooped  to  gather  them  before. 

The  success  of  the  “  Lay”  determined  the  course 
of  its  author’s  future  life.  Notwithstanding  his  punc¬ 
tual  attention  to  his  profession,  his  utmost  profits  for 
any  one  year  of  the  ten  he  had  been  in  practice  had 
not  exceeded  two  hundred  and  thirty  pounds  ;  and 
of  late  they  had  sensibly  declined.  Latterly,  indeed, 
he  had  coqueted  somewhat  too  openly  with  the 
Muse  for  his  professional  reputation.  Themis  has 
always  been  found  a  stern  and  jealous  mistress,  chary 
of  dispensing  her  golden  favours  to  those  who  are 
seduced  into  a  flirtation  with  her  more  volatile  sister. 

Scott,  however,  soon  found  himself  in  a  situation 
that  made  him  independent  of  her  favours.  His  in¬ 
might  be  traced  much  farther  than  mere  forms  of  expression,  to  the  Ital¬ 
ian,  who,  like 

“  the  Ariosto  of  the  North, 

Sung  ladye-love,  and  war,  romance,  and  knightly  worth.” 


192  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

come  from  the  two  offices  to  which  he  was  pro¬ 
moted,  of  Sheriff  of  Selkirk,  and  Clerk  of  the  Court 
of  Sessions,  was  so  ample,  combined  with  what  fell 
to  him  by  inheritance  and  marriage,  that  he  was 
left  at  liberty  freely  to  consult  his  own  tastes.  Amid 
the  seductions  of  poetry,  however,  he  never  shrunk 
from  his  burdensome  professional  duties ;  and  he 
submitted  to  all  their  drudgery  with  unflinching  con¬ 
stancy,  when  the  labours  of  his  pen  made  the  emolu¬ 
ments  almost  beneath  consideration.  He  never  rel¬ 
ished  the  idea  of  being  divorced  from  active  life  by 
the  solitary  occupations  of  a  recluse.  And  his  of¬ 
ficial  functions,  however  severely  they  taxed  his  time, 
may  be  said  to  have,  in  some  degree,  compensated 
him  by  the  new  scenes  of  life  which  they  were  con¬ 
stantly  disclosing — the  very  materials  of  those  fic¬ 
tions  on  which  his  fame  and  his  fortune  were  to  be 
built. 

Scott’s  situation  was  eminently  propitious  to  lit¬ 
erary  pursuits.  He  was  married,  and  passed  the 
better  portion  of  the  year  in  the  country,  where  the 
quiet  pleasures  of  his  fireside  circle,  and  a  keen  rel¬ 
ish  for  rural  sports,  relieved  his  mind,  and  invigorated 
both  health  and  spirits.  In  early  life,  it  seems,  he 
had  been  crossed  in  love;  and,  like  Dante  and  Byron, 
to  whom,  in  this  respect,  he  is  often  compared,  he 
had  more  than  once,  according  to  his  biographer, 
shadowed  forth  in  his  verses  the  object  of  his  unfor¬ 
tunate  passion.  He  does  not  appear  to  have  taken 
it  very  seriously,  however,  nor  to  have  shown  the 
morbid  sensibility  in  relation  to  it  discovered  by  both 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


193 


Byron  and  Dante,  whose  stern  and  solitary  natures 
were  cast  in  a  very  different  mould  from  the  social 
temper  of  Scott. 

His  next  great  poem  was  his  “  Marmion,”  trans¬ 
cending,  in  the  judgment  of  many,  all  his  other  epics, 
and  containing,  in  the  judgment  of  all,  passages  of 
poetic  fire  which  he  never  equalled,  but  which, 
nevertheless,  was  greeted  on  its  entrance  into  the 
world  by  a  critique,  in  the  leading  journal  of  the 
day,  of  the  most  caustic  and  unfriendly  temper. 
The  journal  was  the  Edinburgh,  to  which  he  had 
been  a  frequent  contributor,  and  the  reviewer  was 
his  intimate  friend,  Jeffrey.  The  unkindest  cut  in 
the  article  was  the  imputation  of  a  neglect  of  Scot¬ 
tish  character  and  feeling.  “  There  is  scarcely  one 
trait  of  true  Scottish  nationality  or  patriotism  intro¬ 
duced  into  the  whole  poem ;  and  Mr.  Scott’s  only 
expression  of  admiration  for  the  beautiful  country 
to  which  he  belongs  is  put,  if  we  rightly  remember, 
into  the  mouth  of  one  of  his  Southern  favourites.” 
This  of  Walter  Scott ! 

Scott  was  not  slow,  after  this,  in  finding  the  po¬ 
litical  principles  of  the  Edinburgh  so  repugnant  to 
his  own  (and  they  certainly  were  as  opposite  as  the 
poles),  that  he  first  dropped  the  journal,  and  next  la¬ 
boured  with  unwearied  diligence  to  organize  an¬ 
other,  whose  main  purpose  should  be  to  counteract 
the  heresies  of  the  former.  This  was  the  origin  of 
the  London  Quarterly,  more  imputable  to  Scott’s 
exertions  than  to  those  of  any,  indeed  all  other  per¬ 
sons.  The  result  has  been,  doubtless,  highly  ser- 

B  B 


194  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

viceable  to  the  interests  of  both  morals  and  letters. 
Not  that  the  new  Review  was  conducted  with  more 
fairness,  or,  in  this  sense,  principle,  than  its  antago¬ 
nist.  A  remark  of  Scott’s  own,  in  a  letter  to  Ellis, 
shows  with  how  much  principle.  “  I  have  run  up 
an  attempt  on  ‘  The  Curse  of  Kehama’  for  the 
Quarterly.  It  affords  cruel  openings  to  the  quiz- 
zers,  and  I  suppose  will  get  it  roundly  in  the  Edin¬ 
burgh  Review.  I  would  have  made  a  very  differ¬ 
ent  hand  of  it,  indeed,  had  the  order  of  the  day  been 
pour  declarer  T  But,  although  the  fate  of  the  indi¬ 
vidual  was  thus,  to  a  certain  extent,  a  matter  of  ca¬ 
price,  or,  rather,  prejudgment  in  the  critic,  yet  the 
great  abstract  questions  in  morals,  politics,  and  lit¬ 
erature,  by  being  discussed  on  both  sides,  were  pre¬ 
sented  in  a  fuller,  and,  of  course,  fairer  light  to  the 
public.  Another  beneficial  result  to  letters  was — 
and  we  shall  gain  credit,  at  least,  for  candour  in 
confessing  it — that  it  broke  down  somewhat  of  that 
divinity  which  hedged  in  the  despotic  we  of  the  re¬ 
viewer,  so  long  as  no  rival  arose  to  contest  the  scep¬ 
tre.  The  claims  to  infallibility,  so  long  and  slavish¬ 
ly  acquiesced  in,  fell  to  the  ground  when  thus  stout¬ 
ly  asserted  by  conflicting  parties.  It  was  pretty 
clear  that  the  same  thing  could  not  be  all  black  and 
all  white  at  the  same  time.  In  short,  it  was  the  old 
story  of  pope  and  anti-pope  ;  and  the  public  began 
to  find  out  that  there  might  be  hopes  for  the  salva¬ 
tion  of  an  author,  though  damned  by  the  literary 
popedom.  Time,  by  reversing  many  of  its  decisions, 
must  at  length  have  shown  the  same  thing 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


195 


But  to  return.  Scott  showed  liow  nearly  he  had 
been  touched  to  the  quick  by  two  other  acts  not  so 
discreet.  These  were,  the  establishment  of  an  An¬ 
nual  Register,  and  of  the  great  publishing  house  of 
the  Ballantynes,  in  which  he  became  a  silent  part¬ 
ner.  The  last  step  involved  him  in  grievous  embar¬ 
rassments,  and  stimulated  him  to  exertions  which 
required  “  a  frame  of  adamant  and  soul  of  fire.”  At 
the  same  time,  we  find  him  overwhelmed  with  poet¬ 
ical,  biographical,  historical,  and  critical  composi¬ 
tions,  together  with  editorial  labours  of  appalling 
magnitude.  In  this  multiplication  of  himself  in  a 
thousand  forms,  we  see  him  always  the  same,  vigor¬ 
ous  and  effective.  “  Poetry,”  he  says  in  one  of  his 
letters,  “is  a  scourging  crop,  and  ought  not  to  be 
hastily  repeated.  Editing,  therefore,  may  be  con¬ 
sidered  as  a  green  crop  of  turnips  or  pease,  extremely 
useful  to  those  whose  circumstances  do  not  admit 
of  giving  their  farm  a  summer  fallow.”  It  might  be 
regretted,  however,  that  he  should  have  wasted  pow¬ 
ers  fitted  for  so  much  higher  culture  on  the  coarse 
products  of  a  kitchen  garden,  which  might  have 
been  safely  trusted  to  inferior  hands. 

In  1811,  Scott  gave  to  the  world  his  exquisite 
poem,  “  The  Lady  of  the  Lake.”  One  of  his  fair 
friends  had  remonstrated  with  him  on  thus  risking 
again  the  laurel  he  had  already  won.  He  replied, 
with  characteristic,  and,  indeed,  prophetic  spirit,  “  If 
I  fail,  I  will  write  'prose  all  my  life.  But  if  I  succeed, 

‘  Up  wi’  the  bonnie  blue  bonnet, 

The  dirk  and  the  feather  an  a’ !’  ” 


196  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

In  his  eulogy  on  Byron,  Scott  remarks,  “  There  has 
been  no  reposing  under  the  shade  of  his  laurels,  no 
living  upon  the  resource  of  past  reputation  ;  none  of 
that  coddling  and  petty  precaution  which  little  au¬ 
thors  call  ‘  taking  care  of  their  fame/  Byron  let  his 
fame  take  care  of  itself.”  Scott  could  not  have 
more  accurately  described  his  own  character. 

The  “Lady  of  the  Lake”  was  welcomed  with  an 
enthusiasm  surpassing  that  which  attended  any  oth¬ 
er  of  his  poems.  It  seemed  like  the  sweet  breath¬ 
ings  of  his  native  pibroch,  stealing  over  glen  and 
mountain,  and  calling  up  all  the  delicious  associa¬ 
tions  of  rural  solitude,  which  beautifully  contrasted 

with  the  din  of  battle  and  the  shrill  crv  of  the  war- 

%/ 

trumpet,  that  stirred  the  soul  in  every  page  of  his 
“  Marmion.”  The  publication  of  this  work  carried 
his  fame  as  a  poet  to  its  most  brilliant  height.  The 
post-horse  duty  rose  to  an  extraordinary  degree  in 
Scotland,  from  the  eagerness  of  travellers  to  visit 
the  localities  of  the  poem.  A  more  substantial  evi¬ 
dence  was  afforded  in  its  amazing  circulation,  and, 
consequently,  its  profits.  The  press  could  scarcely 
keep  pace  with  the  public  demand,  and  no  less  than 
fifty  thousand  copies  of  it  have  been  sold  since  the 
date  of  its  appearance.  The  successful  author  re¬ 
ceived  more  than  two  thousand  guineas  from  his 
production.  Milton  received  ten  pounds  for  the 
two  editions  which  he  lived  to  see  of  his  “  Paradise 
Lost.”  The  Ayrshire  bard  had  sighed  for  “  a  lass 
wi’  a  tocher.”  Scott  had  now  found  one  where  it 
was  hardly  to  be  expected,  in  the  Muse. 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


197 


While  the  poetical  fame  of  Scott  was  thus  at  its 
zenith,  a  new  star  rose  above  the  horizon,  whose 
eccentric  course  and  dazzling  radiance  completely 
bewildered  the  spectator.  In  1812,  “  Childe  Har¬ 
old”  appeared,  and  the  attention  seemed  to  be  now 
called,  for  the  first  time,  from  the  outward  form  of 
man  and  visible  nature,  to  the  secret  depths  of  the 
soul.  The  darkest  recesses  of  human  passion  were 
laid  open,  and  the  note  of  sorrow  was  prolonged  in 
tones  of  agonized  sensibility,  the  more  touching  as 
coming  from  one  who  was  placed  on  those  dazzling 
heights  of  rank  and  fashion  which,  to  the  vulgar 
eye  at  least,  seem  to  lie  in  unclouded  sunshine. 
Those  of  the  present  generation  who  have  heard 
only  the  same  key  thrummed  ad  nauseam  by  the  fee¬ 
ble  imitators  of  his  lordship,  can  form  no  idea  of  the 
effect  produced  when  the  chords  were  first  swept  by 
the  master’s  fingers.  It  was  found  impossible  for 
the  ear,  once  attuned  to  strains  of  such  compass  and 
ravishing  harmony,  to  return  with  the  same  relish  to 
purer,  it  might  be,  but  tamer  melody  ;  and  the  sweet 
voice  of  the  Scottish  minstrel  lost  much  of  its  power 
to  charm,  let  him  charm  never  so  wisely.  While 
“Rokeby”  was  in  preparation,  bets  were  laid  on  the 
rival  candidates  by  the  wits  of  the  day.  The  sale 
of  this  poem,  though  great,  showed  a  sensible  de¬ 
cline  in  the  popularity  of  its  author.  This  became 
still  more  evident  on  the  publication  of  “  The  Lord 
of  the  Isles  and  Scott  admitted  the  conviction 
with  his  characteristic  spirit  and  good-nature. 
“‘Well,  James’  (he  said  to  his  printer),  ‘I  have  giv- 


198  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

en  you  a  week — what  are  people  saying  about  the 
Lord  of  the  Isles  V  I  hesitated  a  little,  after  the 
fashion  of  Gil  Bias,  but  he  speedily  brought  the 
matter  to  a  point.  ‘  Come,’  he  said,  ‘speak  out,  my 
good  fellow ;  what  has  put  it  into  your  head  to  be 
on  so  much  ceremony  with  me  all  of  a  sudden?  But 
I  see  how  it  is ;  the  result  is  given  in  one  word — 
Disappointment!  My  silence  admitted  his  infer¬ 
ence  to  the  fullest  extent.  His  countenance  cer¬ 
tainly  did  look  rather  blank  for  a  few  seconds ;  in 
truth,  he  had  been  wholly  unprepared  for  the  event. 
At  length  he  said,  with  perfect  cheerfulness,  ‘Well, 
well,  James,  so  be  it ;  but  you  know  we  must  not 
droop,  for  we  can’t  afford  to  give  over.  Since  one 
line  has  failed,  we  must  stick  to  something  else.’  ” 
This  something  else  was  a  mine  he  had  already  hit 
upon,  of  invention  and  substantial  wealth,  such  as 
Thomas  the  Rhymer,  or  Michael  Scott,  or  any  other 
adept  in  the  black  art  had  never  dreamed  of. 

Everybody  knows  the  story  of  the  composition  of 
“Waverley” — the  most  interesting  story  in  the  annals 
of  letters — and  how,  some  ten  years  after  its  com¬ 
mencement,  it  was  fished  out  of  some  old  lumber 
in  an  attic,  and  completed  in  a  few  weeks  for  the 
press  in  1814.  Its  appearance  marks  a  more  dis¬ 
tinct  epoch  in  English  literature  than  that  of  the 
poetry  of  its  author.  All  previous  attempts  in  the 
same  school  of  fiction — a  school  of  English  growth 
— had  been  cramped  by  the  limited  information  or 
talent  of  the  writers.  Smollett  had  produced  his 
spirited  sea-pieces,  and  Fielding  his  warm  sketches 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


199 


of  country  life,  both  of  them  mixed  up  with  so  much 
Billingsgate  as  required  a  strong  flavour  of  wit  to 
make  them  tolerable.  Richardson  had  covered 
acres  of  canvass  with  his  faithful  family  pictures. 
Mrs.  Radcliffe  had  dipped  up  to  the  elbows  in  hor¬ 
rors  ;  while  Miss  Burney’s  fashionable  gossip,  and 
Miss  Edgeworth’s  Hogarth  drawings  of  the  prose  — 
not  the  poetry — of  life  and  character,  had  each  and 
all  found  favour  in  their  respective  ways.  But  a 
work  now  appeared  in  which  the  author  swept  over 
the  whole  range  of  character  with  entire  freedom  as 
well  as  fidelity,  ennobling  the  whole  by  high  historic 
associations,  and  in  a  style  varying  with  his  theme, 
but  whose  pure  and  classic  flow  was  tinctured  with 
just  so  much  of  poetic  colouring  as  suited  the  pur¬ 
poses  of  romance.  It  was  Shakspeare  in  prose. 

The  work  was  published,  as  we  know,  anony¬ 
mously.  Mr.  Gillies  states,  however,  that,  while  in 
the  press,  fragments  of  it  were  communicated  to 
“  Mr.  Mackenzie,  Dr.  Brown,  Mrs.  Hamilton,  and 
other  savans  or  savantes ,  whose  dicta  on  the  merits 
of  a  new  novel  were  considered  unimpeachable.” 
By  their  approbation  “  a  strong  body  of  friends  was 
formed,  and  the  curiosity  of  the  public  prepared  the 
way  for  its  reception.”  This  may  explain  the  ra¬ 
pidity  with  which  the  anonymous  publication  rose 
into  a  degree  of  favour,  which,  though  not  less  sure¬ 
ly,  perhaps,  it  might  have  been  more  slow  in  achiev¬ 
ing.  The  author  jealously  preserved  his  incognito, 
and,  in  order  to  heighten  the  mystification,  flung  off, 
almost  simultaneously,  a  variety  of  works,  in  prose 


200  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

and  poetry,  any  one  of  which  might  have  been  the 
labour  of  months.  The  public  for  a  moment  was  at 
fault.  There  seemed  to  be  six  Richmonds  in  the 
field.  The  world,  therefore,  was  reduced  to  the  di¬ 
lemma  of  either  supposing  that  half  a  dozen  differ¬ 
ent  hands  could  work  in  precisely  the  same  style,  or 
that  one  could  do  the  work  of  half  a  dozen.  With 
time,  however,  the  veil  wore  thinner  and  thinner, 
until  at  length,  and  long  before  the  ingenious  argu¬ 
ment  of  Mr.  Adolphus,  there  was  scarcely  a  critic  so 
purblind  as  not  to  discern  behind  it  the  features  of 
the  mighty  minstrel. 

Constable  had  offered  seven  hundred  pounds  for 
the  new  novel.  “It  was,”  says  Mr.  Lockhart,  “ten 
times  as  much  as  Miss  Edgeworth  ever  realized  from 
any  of  her  popular  Irish  tales.”  Scott  declined  the 
offer,  which  had  been  a  good  one  for  the  bookseller 
had  he  made  it  as  many  thousand.  But  it  passed 
the  art  of  necromancy  to  divine  this. 

Scott,  once  entered  on  this  new  career,  followed 
it  up  with  an  energy  unrivalled  in  the  history  of  lit¬ 
erature.  The  public  mind  was  not  suffered  to  cool 
for  a  moment,  before  its  attention  was  called  to  an¬ 
other  miracle  of  creation  from  the  same  hand.  Even 
illness,  that  would  have  broken  the  spirits  of  most 
men,  as  it  prostrated  the  physical  energies  of  Scott, 
opposed  no  impediment  to  the  march  of  composi¬ 
tion.  When  he  could  no  longer  write  he  could 
dictate,  and  in  this  way,  amid  the  agonies  of  a  rack¬ 
ing  disease,  he  composed  “  The  Bride  of  Lammer- 
moor,”  the  “  Legend  of  Montrose,”  and  a  great  part 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


201 


of  “Ivanhoe.”  The  first,  indeed,  is  darkened  with 
those  deep  shadows  that  might  seem  thrown  over  it 
by  the  sombre  condition  of  its  author.  But  what 
shall  we  say  of  the  imperturbable  dry  humour  of  the 
gallant  Captain  Dngald  Dalgetty  of  Drumthwacket, 
or  of  the  gorgeous  revelries  of  Ivanhoe — 

“  Such  sights  as  youthful  poets  dream, 

On  summer  eves  by  haunted  stream” — 

what  shall  we  say  of  such  brilliant  day-dreams  for  a 
bed  of  torture  1  Never  before  had  the  spirit  triumph¬ 
ed  over  such  agonies  of  the  flesh.  “  The  best  way,” 
said  Scott,  in  one  of  his  talks  with  Gillies,  “  >s.  if 
possible ,  to  triumph  over  disease  by  setting  it  at  de¬ 
fiance  ;  somewhat  on  the  same  principle  as  one 
avoids  being  stung  by  boldly  grasping  a  nettle.” 

The  prose  fictions  were  addressed  to  a  much  lar¬ 
ger  audience  than  the  poems  could  be.  They  had 
attractions  for  every  age  and  every  class.  The  prof¬ 
its,  of  course,  were  commensurate.  Arithmetic  has 
never  been  so  severely  taxed  as  in  the  computation 
of  Scott’s  productions  and  the  proceeds  resulting 
from  them.  In  one  year  he  received  (or,  more  prop¬ 
erly,  was  credited  with,  for  it  is  somewhat  doubtful 
how  much  he  actually  received)  fifteen  thousand 
pounds  for  his  novels,  comprehending  the  first  edi¬ 
tion  and  the  copyright.  The  discovery  of  this  rich 
mine  furnished  its  fortunate  proprietor  with  the 
means  of  gratifying  the  fondest  and  even  most  chi¬ 
merical  desires.  He  had  always  coveted  the  situ¬ 
ation  of  a  lord  of  acres — a  Scottish  laird — where  his 
passion  for  planting  might  find  scope  in  the  creation 

C  c 


202  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

of  whole  forests — for  everything  with  him  was  on  a 
magnificent  scale — and  where  he  might  indulge  the 
kindly  feelings  of  his  nature  in  his  benevolent  offices 
to  a  numerous  and  dependant  tenantry.  The  few 
acres  of  the  original  purchase  now  swelled  into 
hundreds,  and,  for  aught  we  know,  thousands ;  for 
one  tract  alone  we  find  incidentally  noticed  as  cost¬ 
ing  thirty  thousand  pounds.  “  It  rounds  off  the 
property  so  handsomely,”  he  says,  in  one  of  his  let¬ 
ters.  There  was  always  a  corner  to  “  round  off.” 
The  mansion,  in  the  mean  time,  from  a  simple  cot¬ 
tage  ornee ,  was  amplified  into  the  dimensions  almost, 
as  well  as  the  bizarre  proportions,  of  some  old  feu¬ 
dal  castle.  The  furniture  and  decorations  were  of 
the  costliest  kind  :  the  wainscots  of  oak  and  cedar ; 
the  floors  tesselated  with  marbles,  or  woods  of  dif¬ 
ferent  dyes  ;  the  ceilings  fretted  and  carved  with 
the  delicate  tracery  of  a  Gothic  abbey;  the  storied 
windows  blazoned  with  the  richly-coloured  insignia 
of  heraldry,  the  walls  garnished  with  time-honoured 
trophies,  or  curious  specimens  of  art,  or  volumes 
sumptuously  bound — in  short,  with  all  that  luxury 
could  demand  or  ingenuity  devise  ;  while  a  copious 
reservoir  of  gas  supplied  every  corner  of  the  man¬ 
sion  with  such  fountains  of  light  as  must  have  puz¬ 
zled  the  genius  of  the  lamp  to  provide  for  the  less 
fortunate  Aladdin. 

Scott’s  exchequer  must  have  been  seriously  taxed 
in  another  form  by  the  crowds  of  visiters  whom  he 
entertained  under  his  hospitable  roof.  There  was 
scarcely  a  person  of  note,  or,  to  say  truth,  not  of 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


203 


note,  who  visited  that  country  without  paying  his 
respects  to  the  Lion  of  Scotland.  Lockhart  reck¬ 
ons  up  a  full  sixth  of  the  British  peerage,  who  had 
been  there  within  his  recollection  ;  and  Captain  Hall, 
in  his  amusing  Notes,  remarks,  that  it  was  not  un¬ 
usual  for  a  dozen  or  more  coach  loads  to  find  their 
way  into  his  grounds  in  the  course  of  the  day,  most 
of  whom  found  or  forced  an  entrance  into  the  man¬ 
sion.  Such  was  the  heavy  tax  paid  by  his  celeb¬ 
rity,  and,  we  may  add,  his  good-nature ;  for,  if  the 
one  had  been  a  whit  less  than  the  other,  he  could 
never  have  tolerated  such  a  nuisance. 

The  cost  of  his  correspondence  gives  one  no  light 
idea  of  the  demands  made  on  his  time,  as  well  as 
purse,  in  another  form.  His  postage  for  letters,  in¬ 
dependently  of  franks,  by  which  a  large  portion  of  it 
was  covered,  amounted  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds, 
it  seems,  in  the  course  of  the  year.  In  this,  indeed, 
should  be  included  ten  pounds  for  a  pair  of  unfortu¬ 
nate  Cherokee  Lovers ,  sent  all  the  way  from  our  own 
happy  land  in  order  to  be  god-fathered  by  Sir  Wal¬ 
ter  on  the  London  boards.  Perhaps  the  smart-money 
he  had  to  pay  on  this  interesting  occasion  had  its  in¬ 
fluence  in  mixing  up  rather  more  acid  than  was  nat¬ 
ural  to  him  in  his  judgments  of  our  countrymen.  At 
all  events,  the  Yankees  find  little  favour  on  the  few 
occasions  on  which  he  has  glanced  at  them  in  his 
correspondence.  “  I  am  not  at  all  surprised,' ”  he 
says,  in  a  letter  to  Miss  Edgeworth,  ‘Y  am  not  at  all 
surprised  at  what  you  say  of  the  Yankees.  They 
are  a  people  possessed  of  very  considerable  energy, 


204  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

quickened  and  brought  into  eager  action  by  an  hon¬ 
ourable  love  of  their  country  and  pride  in  their  in¬ 
stitutions;  but  they  are  as  yet  rude  in  their  ideas  of 
social  intercourse,  and  totally  ignorant,  speaking  gen¬ 
erally,  of  all  the  art  of  good-breeding,  which  consists 
chiefly  in  a  postponement  of  one’s  own  petty  wishes 
or  comforts  to  those  of  others.  By  rude  questions 
and  observations,  an  absolute  disrespect  to  other  peo¬ 
ple’s  feelings,  and  a  ready  indulgence  of  their  own, 
they  make  one  feverish  in  their  company,  though 
perhaps  you  may  be  ashamed  to  confess  the  reason. 
But  this  will  wear  off,  and  is  already  wearing  away. 
Men,  when  they  have  once  got  benches,  will  soon 
fall  into  the  use  of  cushions.  They  are  advancing 
in  the  lists  of  our  literature,  and  they  will  not  be 
long  deficient  in  the  petite  morale ,  especially  as  they 
have,  like  ourselves,  the  rage  for  travelling.”  On 
another  occasion,  he  does,  indeed,  admit  having  met 
with,  in  the  course  of  his  life,  “  four  or  five  well-let¬ 
tered  Americans,  ardent  in  pursuit  of  knowledge, 
and  free  from  the  ignorance  and  forward  presump¬ 
tion  which  distinguish  many  of  their  countrymen.” 
This  seems  hard  measure,  but  perhaps  we  should 
find  it  difficult,  among  the  many  who  have  visited 
this  country,  to  recollect  as  great  a  number  of  Eng¬ 
lishmen — and  Scotchmen  to  boot — entitled  to  a  high¬ 
er  degree  of  commendation.  It  can  hardly  be  that 
the  well-informed  and  well-bred  men  of  both  coun¬ 
tries  make  a  point  of  staying  at  home ;  so  we  sup¬ 
pose  we  must  look  for  the  solution  of  the  matter  in 
the  existence  of  some  disagreeable  ingredient,  com- 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


205 


mon  to  the  characters  of  both  nations,  sprouting,  as 
they  do,  from  a  common  stock,  which  remains  latent 
at  home,  and  is  never  fully  disclosed  till  they  get  into 
a  foreign  climate.  But  as  this  problem  seems  preg¬ 
nant  with  philosophical,  physiological,  and,  for  aught 
we  know,  psychological  matter,  we  have  not  courage 
for  it  here,  but  recommend  the  solution  to  Miss  Mar- 
tineau,  to  whom  it  will  afford  a  very  good  title  for  a 
new  chapter  in  her  next  edition.  The  strictures  we 
have  quoted,  however,  to  speak  more  seriously,  are 
worth  attending  to,  coming  as  they  do  fro.m  a  shrewd 
observer,  and  one  whose  judgments,  though  here 
somewhat  coloured,  no  doubt,  by  political  prejudice, 
are,  in  the  main,  distinguished  by  a  sound  and  liberal 
philanthropy.  But  were  he  ten  times  an  enemy,  we 
would  say,  “Fas  est  ab  hoste  doceri.” 

With  the  splendid  picture  of  the  baronial  resi¬ 
dence  at  Abbotsford,  Mr.  Lockhart  closes  all  that  at 
this  present  writing  we  have  received  of  his  delight¬ 
ful  work  in  this  country;  and  in  the  last  sentence 
the  melancholy  sound  of  “  the  muffled  drum”  gives 
ominous  warning  of  what  we  are  to  expect  in  the 
sixth  and  concluding  volume.  In  the  dearth  of  more 
authentic  information,  we  will  piece  out  our  sketch 
with  a  few  facts  gleaned  from  the  somewhat  meager 
bill  of  fare — meager  by  comparison  with  the  rich 
banquet  of  the  true  Amphitryon — afforded  by  the 
“  Recollections”  of  Mr.  Robert  Pierce  Gillies. 

The  unbounded  popularity  of  the  Waverley  Nov¬ 
els  led  to  still  more  extravagant  anticipations  on  the 
part  both  of  the  publishers  and  author.  Some  hints 


206  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

of  a  falling  off,  though  but  slightly,  in  the  public  fa¬ 
vour,  were  unheeded  by  both  parties,  though,  to  say 
truth,  the  exact  state  of  things  was  never  disclosed 
to  Scott,  it  being  Ballantyne’s  notion  that  it  would 
prove  a  damper,  and  that  the  true  course  was  “  to 
press  on  more  sail  as  the  wind  lulled.”  In  these 
sanguine  calculations,  not  only  enormous  sums,  or, 
to  speak  correctly,  bills,  were  given  for  what  had  been 
written,  but  the  author’s  draughts,  to  the  amount  of 
many  thousand  pounds,  were  accepted  by  Constable 
in  favour  of  works,  the  very  embryos  of  which  lay, 
not  only  unformed,  but  unimagined  in  the  womb  of 
time.  In  return  for  this  singular  accommodation, 
Scott  was  induced  to  endorse  the  draughts  of  his 
publisher,  and  in  this  way  an  amount  of  liabilities 
was  incurred,  which,  considering  the  character  of  the 
house  and  its  transactions,  it  is  altogether  inexpli¬ 
cable  that  a  person  in  the  independent  position  of 
Sir  Walter  Scott  should  have  subjected  himself  to 
for  a  moment.  He  seems  to  have  had  entire  confi¬ 
dence  in  the  stability  of  the  firm,  a  confidence  to 
which  it  seems,  from  Mr.  Gillies’s  account,  not  to 
have  been  entitled  from  the  first  moment  of  his  con¬ 
nexion  with  it.  The  great  reputation  of  the  house, 
however,  the  success  and  magnitude  of  some  of  its 
transactions,  especially  the  publication  of  these  nov¬ 
els,  gave  it  a  large  credit,  which  enabled  it  to  go 
forward  with  a  great  show  of  prosperity  in  ordinary 
times,  and  veiled  its  tottering  state  probably  from 
Constable’s  own  eyes.  It  is  but  the  tale  of  yester¬ 
day.  The  case  of  Constable  and  Co.  is,  unhappily. 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


207 


a  very  familiar  one  to  us.  But  when  the  hurricane 
of  1825  came  on,  it  swept  away  all  those  buildings 
that  were  not  founded  on  a  rock,  and  those  of 
Messrs.  Constable,  among  others,  soon  became  lit¬ 
erally  mere  castles  in  the  air — in  plain  English,  the 
firm  stopped  payment.  The  assets  were  very  tri¬ 
fling  in  comparison  with  the  debts;  and  Sir  Walter 
Scott  was  found  on  their  paper  to  the  frightful 
amount  of  one  hundred  thousand  pounds! 

His  conduct  on  the  occasion  was  precisely  what 
was  to  have  been  anticipated  from  one  who  had  de¬ 
clared  on  a  similar,  though  much  less  appalling  con¬ 
juncture,  “  I  am  always  ready  to  make  any  sacri¬ 
fices  to  do  justice  to  my  engagements,  and  would 
rather  sell  anything,  or  everything,  than  be  less 
than  a  true  man  to  the  world.”  He  put  up  his 
house  and  furniture  in  town  at  auction,  delivered 
over  his  personal  effects  at  Abbotsford,  his  plate, 
books,  furniture,  &c.,  to  be  held  in  trust  for  his  cred¬ 
itors  (the  estate  itself  had  been  recently  secured  to 
his  son  on  occasion  of  his  marriage),  and  bound 
himself  to  discharge  a  certain  amount  annually  of 
the  liabilities  of  the  insolvent  firm.  He  then,  with 
his  characteristic  energy,  set  about  the  performance 
of  his  Herculean  task.  He  took  lodgings  in  a  third- 
rate  house  in  St.  David’s-street,  saw  but  little  com¬ 
pany,  abridged  the  hours  usually  devoted  to  his  meals 
and  his  family,  gave  up  his  ordinary  exercise,  and,  in 
short,  adopted  the  severe  habits  of  a  regular  Grub- 
street  stipendiary. 

“  For  many  years,”  he  said  to  Mr.  Gillies,  “  I  have 


208  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

been  accustomed  to  hard  work,  because  I  found  it  a 
pleasure;  now,  with  all  due  respect  for  Falstaff’s 
principle,  ‘  nothing  on  compulsion,’  I  certainly  will 
not  shrink  from  work  because  it  has  become  neces¬ 
sary.” 

One  of  his  first  tasks  was  his  “Life  of  Bonaparte,” 
achieved  in  the  space  of  thirteen  months.  For  this 
he  received  fourteen  thousand  pounds,  about  eleven 
hundred  per  month — not  a  bad  bargain  either,  as  it 
proved,  for  the  publishers.  The  first  two  volumes 
of  the  nine  which  make  up  the  English  edition  were 
a  rifacimento  of  what  he  had  before  compiled  for  the 
“  Annual  Register.”  With  every  allowance  for  the 
inaccuracies,  and  the  excessive  expansion  incident  to 
such  a  flashing  rapidity  of  execution,  the  work,  ta¬ 
king  into  view  the  broad  range  of  its  topics,  its  shrewd 
and  sagacious  reflections,  and  the  free,  bold,  and  pic¬ 
turesque  colouring  of  its  narration,  and,  above  all, 
considering  the  brief  time  in  which  it  was  written ,  is 
indisputably  one  of  the  most  remarkable  monuments 
of  genius  and  industry — perhaps  the  most  remarka¬ 
ble  ever  recorded. 

* 

Scott’s  celebrity  made  everything  that  fell  from 
him,  however  trifling — the  dewdrops  from  the  lion’s 
mane — of  value.  But  none  of  the  many  adventures 
he  embarked  in,  or,  rather,  set  afloat,  proved  so  prof¬ 
itable  as  the  republication  of  his  novels,  with  his  notes 
and  illustrations.  As  he  felt  his  own  strength  in  the 
increasing  success  of  his  labours,  he  appears  to  have 
relaxed  somewhat  from  them,  and  to  have  again  re¬ 
sumed  somewhat  of  his  ancient  habits,  and,  in  a  mit- 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


209 


igated  degree,  his  ancient  hospitality.  But  still  his 
exertions  were  too  severe,  and  pressed  heavily  on 
the  springs  of  his  health,  already  deprived  by  age  of 
their  former  elasticity  and  vigour.  At  length,  in 
1831,  he  was  overtaken  by  one  of  those  terrible 
shocks  of  paralysis  which  seem  to  have  been  con¬ 
stitutional  in  his  family,  but  which,  with  more  pre¬ 
caution,  and  under  happier  auspices,  might,  doubtless, 
have  been  postponed,  if  not  wholly  averted.  At 
this  time  he  had,  in  the  short  space  of  little  more 
than  five  years,  by  his  sacrifices  and  efforts,  dischar¬ 
ged  about  two  thirds  of  the  debt  for  which  he  was 
responsible :  an  astonishing  result,  wholly  unparal¬ 
leled  in  the  history  of  letters  !  There  is  something 
inexpressibly  painful  in  this  spectacle  of  a  generous 
heart  thus  courageously  contending  with  fortune, 
bearing  up  against  the  tide  with  unconquerable  spir¬ 
it,  and  finally  overwhelmed  by  it  just  within  reach  of 
shore. 

The  rest  of  his  story  is  one  of  humiliation  and 
sorrow.  He  was  induced  to  take  a  voyage  to  the 
Continent  to  try  the  effect  of  a  more  genial  climate. 
Under  the  sunny  sky  of  Italy,  he  seemed  to  gather 
new  strength  for  a  while ;  but  his  eye  fell  with  in¬ 
difference  on  the  venerable  monuments  which,  in 
better  days,  would  have  kindled  all  his  enthusiasm. 
The  invalid  sighed  for  his  own  home  at  Abbotsford. 
The  heat  of  the  weather  and  the  fatigue  of  rapid 
travel  brought  on  another  shock,  which  reduced  him 
to  a  state  of  deplorable  imbecility.  In  this  condition 
he  returned  to  his  own  halls,  where  the  sight  of  early 

Dd 


210  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

friends,  and  of  the  beautiful  scenery,  the  creation,  as 
it  were,  of  his  own  hands,  seemed  to  impart  a  gleam 
of  melancholy  satisfaction,  which  soon,  however,  sunk 
into  insensibility.  To  his  present  situation  might 
well  be  applied  the  exquisite  verses  which  he  indi¬ 
ted  on  another  melancholy  occasion : 

“  Yet  not  the  landscape  to  mine  eye 

Bears  those  bright  hues  that  once  it  bore ; 

Though  Evening,  with  her  richest  dye, 

Flames  o’er  the  hills  of  Ettrick’s  shore. 

“  With  listless  look  along  the  plain 
I  see  Tweed’s  silver  current  glide, 

And  coldly  mark  the  holy  fane 
Of  Melrose  rise  in  ruined  pride. 

“  The  quiet  lake,  the  balmy  air, 

The  hill,  the  stream,  the  tower,  the  tree, 

Are  they  still  such  as  once  they  were, 

Or  is  the  dreary  change  in  me  1” 

Providence,  in  its  mercy,  did  not  suffer  the  shatter¬ 
ed  frame  long  to  outlive  the  glorious  spirit  which  had 
informed  it.  He  breathed  his  last  on  the  21st  of 
September,  1832.  His  remains  were  deposited,  as 
he  had  always  desired,  in  the  hoary  abbey  of  Dry- 
burgh,  and  the  pilgrim  from  many  a  distant  clime 
shall  repair  to  the  consecrated  spot  so  long  as  the 
reverence  for  exalted  genius  and  worth  shall  survive 
in  the  human  heart. 

This  sketch,  brief  as  we  could  make  it,  of  the  lit¬ 
erary  history  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  has  extended  so  far 
as  to  leave  but  little  space  for — what  Lockhart’s  vol¬ 
umes  afford  ample  materials  for — his  personal  char¬ 
acter.  Take  it  for  all  and  all,  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  this  character  is  probably  the  most  remark- 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


211 


able  on  record.  There  is  no  man  of  historical  ce¬ 
lebrity  that  we  now  recall,  who  combined,  in  so  em¬ 
inent  a  degree,  the  highest  qualities  of  the  moral, 
the  intellectual,  and  the  physical.  He  united  in  his 
own  character  what  hitherto  had  been  found  incom¬ 
patible.  Though  a  poet,  and  living  in  an  ideal 
world,  he  was  an  exact,  methodical  man  of  busi¬ 
ness  ;  though  achieving  with  the  most  wonderful  fa¬ 
cility  of  genius,  he  was  patient  and  laborious ;  a 
mousing  antiquarian,  yet  with  the  most  active  in¬ 
terest  in  the  present,  and  whatever  was  going  on 
around  him ;  with  a  strong  turn  for  a  roving  life 
and  military  adventure,  he  was  yet  chained  to  his 
desk  more  hours,  at  some  periods  of  his  life,  than  a 
monkish  recluse ;  a  man  with  a  heart  as  capacious 
as  his  head;  a  Tory,  brim  full  of  Jacobitism,  yet 
full  of  sympathy  and  unaffected  familiarity  with  all 
classes,  even  the  humblest;  a  successful  author,  with¬ 
out  pedantry  and  without  conceit ;  one,  indeed,  at 
the  head  of  the  republic  of  letters,  and  yet  with  a 
lower  estimate  of  letters,  as  compared  with  other  in¬ 
tellectual  pursuits,  than  was  ever  hazarded  before. 

The  first  quality  of  his  character,  or,  rather,  that 
which  forms  the  basis  of  it,  as  of  all  great  characters, 
was  his  energy.  We  see  it,  in  his  early  youth,  tri¬ 
umphing  over  the  impediments  of  nature,  and,  in 
spite  of  lameness,  making  him  conspicuous  in  every 
sort  of  athletic  exercise — clambering  up  dizzy  pre¬ 
cipices,  wading  through  treacherous  fords,  and  per¬ 
forming  feats  of  pedestrianism  that  make  one’s  joints 
ache  to  read  of.  As  he  advanced  in  life,  we  see  the 


212  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

same  force  of  purpose  turned  to  higher  objects.  A 
striking  example  occurs  in  his  organization  of  the 
journals  and  the  publishing  house  in  opposition  to 
Constable.  In  what  Herculean  drudgery  did  not 
this  latter  business,  in  which  he  undertook  to  supply 
matter  for  the  nimble  press  of  Ballantyne,  involve 
him !  while,  in  addition  to  his  own  concerns,  he  had 
to  drag  along  by  his  solitary  momentum  a  score  of 
heavier  undertakings,  that  led  Lockhart  to  compare 
him  to  a  steam-engine,  with  a  train  of  coal  wagons 
hitched  to  it.  “  Yes,”  said  Scott,  laughing,  and  ma¬ 
king  a  crashing  cut  with  his  axe  (for  they  were  fell¬ 
ing  larches),  “  and  there  was  a  cursed  lot  of  dung 
carts  too.” 

We  see  the  same  powerful  energies  triumphing 
over  disease  at  a  later  period,  when  nothing  but  a 
resolution  to  get  the  better  of  it  enabled  him  to  do 
so.  “Be  assured,”  he  remarked  to  Mr.  Gillies,  “that 
if  pain  could  have  prevented  my  application  to  lit¬ 
erary  labour,  not  a  page  of  Ivanhoe  would  have 
been  written.  Now  if  I  had  given  way  to  mere 
feelings,  and  ceased  to  work,  it  is  a  cpiestion  whether 
the  disorder  might  not  have  taken  a  deeper  root,  and 
become  incurable.”  But  the  most  extraordinarv  in- 
stance  of  this  trait  is  the  readiness  with  which  he 
assumed  and  the  spirit  with  which  he  carried  through, 
till  his  mental  strength  broke  down  under  it,  the  gi¬ 
gantic  task  imposed  on  him  by  the  failure  of  Constable. 

It  mattered  little  what  the  nature  of  the  task  was, 
whether  it  were  organizing  an  opposition  to  a  polit¬ 
ical  faction,  or  a  troop  of  cavalry  to  resist  invasion, 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


213 


or  a  medley  of  wild  Highlanders  or  Edinburgh  cock¬ 
neys  to  make  up  a  royal  puppet-show — a  loyal  cel¬ 
ebration — for  “  His  Most  Sacred  Majesty” — he  was 
the  master-spirit  that  gave  the  cue  to  the  whole 
dramatis  persona.  This  potent  impulse  showed  it¬ 
self  in  the  thoroughness  with  which  he  prescribed, 
not  merely  the  general  orders,  but  the  execution  of 
the  minutest  details,  in  his  own  person.  Thus  all 
around  him  was  the  creation,  as  it  were,  of  his  in¬ 
dividual  exertion.  His  lands  waved  with  forests 
planted  with  his  own  hands,  and,  in  process  of  time, 
cleared  by  his  own  hands.  He  did  not  lay  the  stones 
in  mortar,  exactly,  for  his  whimsical  castle,  but  lie 
seems  to  have  superintended  the  operation  from  the 
foundation  to  the  battlements.  The  antique  relics,  the 
curious  works  of  art,  the  hangings  and  furniture,  even, 
with  which  his  halls  were  decorated,  were  specially 
contrived  or  selected  by  him  ;  and,  to  read  his  letters 
at  this  time  to  his  friend  Terry,  one  might  fancy 
himself  perusing  the  correspondence  of  an  uphol¬ 
sterer,  so  exact  and  technical  is  he  in  his  instructions 
We  say  this  not  in  disparagement  of  his  great  qual¬ 
ities.  It  is  only  the  more  extraordinary ;  for,  while 
he  stooped  to  such  trifles,  he  was  equally  thorough 
in  matters  of  the  highest  moment.  It  was  a  trait  of 
character. 

Another  quality,  which,  like  the  last,  seems  to  have 
given  the  tone  to  his  character,  was  his  social  or  be¬ 
nevolent  feelings.  His  heart  was  an  unfailing  fount¬ 
ain,  which  not  merely  the  distresses,  but  the  joys  of 
his  fellow-creatures  made  to  flow  like  water.  In 


214  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

early  life,  and  possibly  sometimes  in  later,  high  spir¬ 
its  and  a  vigorous  constitution  led  him  occasionally 
to  carry  his  social  propensities  into  convivial  excess; 
but  he  never  was  in  danger  of  the  habitual  excess 
to  which  a  vulgar  mind — and  sometimes,  alas !  one 
more  finely  tuned  —  abandons  itself.  With  all  his 
conviviality,  it  was  not  the  sensual  relish,  but  the  so¬ 
cial,  which  acted  on  him.  He  was  neither  gourme 
nor  gourmand ;  but  his  social  meetings  were  endear¬ 
ed  to  him  by  the  free  interchange  of  kindly  feelings 
with  his  friends.  La  Bruy  ere  says  (and  it  is  odd 
he  should  have  found  it  out  in  Louis  the  Four¬ 
teenth’s  court),  “  the  heart  has  more  to  do  than  the 
head  with  the  pleasures,  or,  rather,  promoting  the 
pleasures  of  society  “  Un  homme  est  d’un  meilleur 
commerce  dans  la  societe  par  le  cosur  que  par  l’es- 
prit.”  If  report — the  report  of  travellers — be  true, 
we  Americans,  at  least  the  New-Englanders,  are  too 
much  perplexed  with  the  cares  and  crosses  of  life  to 
afford  many  genuine  specimens  of  this  bonhommie 
However  this  may  be,  we  all,  doubtless,  know  some 
such  character,  whose  shining  face,  the  index  of  a 
cordial  heart,  radiant  with  beneficent  pleasure,  diffu¬ 
ses  its  own  exhilarating  glow  wherever  it  appears. 
Rarely,  indeed,  is  this  precious  quality  found  united 
with  the  most  exalted  intellect.  Whether  it  be  that 
Nature,  chary  of  her  gifts,  does  not  care  to  shower 
too  many  of  them  on  one  head ;  or  that  the  public 
admiration  has  led  the  man  of  intellect  to  set  too 
high  a  value  on  himself,  or  at  least  his  own  pursuits, 
to  take  an  interest  in  the  inferior  concerns  of  others; 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


215 


or  that  the  fear  of  compromising  his  dignity  puts  him 
“  on  points”  with  those  who  approach  him  ;  or 
whether,  in  truth,  the  very  magnitude  of  his  own 
reputation  throws  a  freezing  shadow  over  us  little 
people  in  his  neighbourhood  —  whatever  be  the 
cause,  it  is  too  true  that  the  highest  powers  of  mind 
are  very  often  deficient  in  the  only  one  which  can 
make  the  rest  of  much  worth  in  society — the  power 
of  pleasing. 

Scott  was  not  one  of  these  little  great.  His  was 
not  one  of  those  dark-lantern  visages  which  concen¬ 
trate  all  their  light  on  their  own  path,  and  are  black 
as  midnight  to  all  about  them.  He  had  a  ready 
sympathy,  a  word  of  contagious  kindness,  or  cordial 
greeting,  for  all.  His  manners,  too,  were  of  a  kind 
to  dispel  the  icy  reserve  and  awe  which  his  great 
name  was  calculated  to  inspire.  His  frank  address 
was  a  sort  of  open  sesame  to  every  heart.  He  did 
not  deal  in  sneers,  the  poisoned  weapons  which 
come  not  from  the  head,  as  the  man  who  launches 
them  is  apt  to  think,  but  from  an  acid  heart,  or,  per¬ 
haps,  an  acid  stomach,  a  very  common  laboratory  of 
such  small  artillery.  Neither  did  Scott  amuse  the 
company  with  parliamentary  harangues  or  meta¬ 
physical  disquisitions.  His  conversation  was  of  the 
narrative  kind,  not  formal,  but  as  casually  suggested 
by  some  passing  circumstance  or  topic,  and  thrown 
in  by  way  of  illustration.  He  did  not  repeat  him¬ 
self,  however,  but  continued  to  give  his  anecdotes 
such  variations,  by  rigging  them  out  in  a  new  “  cock¬ 
ed  hat  and  walking-cane,”  as  he  called  it,  that  they 


216  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

never  tired  like  the  thrice-told  tale  of  a  chronic  ra¬ 
conteur.  He  allowed  others,  too,  to  take  their  turn, 
and  thought  with  the  Dean  of  St.  Patrick’s: 

“  Carve  to  all,  but  just  enough, 

Let  them  neither  starve  nor  stuff : 

And,  that  you  may  have  your  due, 

Let  your  neighbours  carve  for  you.” 

He  relished  a  good  joke,  from  whatever  quarter  it 
came,  and  was  not  over-dainty  in  his  manner  of 
testifying  his  satisfaction.  “  In  the  full  tide  of  mirth, 
he  did  indeed  laugh  the  heart’s  laugh,”  says  Mr. 
Adolphus.  “  Give  me  an  honest  laugher,”  said  Scott 
himself,  on  another  occasion,  when  a  buckram  man 
of  fashion  had  been  paying  him  a  visit  at  Abbots¬ 
ford.  His  manners,  free  from  affectation  or  artifice 
of  any  sort,  exhibited  the  spontaneous  movements 
of  a  kind  disposition,  subject  to  those  rules  of  good 
breeding  which  Nature  herself  might  have  dictated. 
In  this  way  he  answered  his  own  purpose  admira¬ 
bly  as  a  painter  of  character,  by  putting  every  man 
in  good  humour  with  himself,  in  the  same  manner 
as  a  cunning  portrait-painter  amuses  his  sitters  with 
such  store  of  fun  and  anecdote  as  may  throw  them 
off  their  guard,  and  call  out  the  happiest  expressions 
of  their  countenances. 

Scott,  in  his  wide  range  of  friends  and  compan¬ 
ions,  does  not  seem  to  have  been  over-fastidious. 
In  the  instance  of  John  Ballantyne,  it  has  exposed 
him  to  some  censure.  In  truth,  a  more  worthless 
fellow  never  hung  on  the  skirts  of  a  great  man  ;  for 
he  did  not  take  the  trouble  to  throw  a  decent  veil 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


217 


over  the  grossest  excesses.  But  then  he  had  been 
the  schoolboy  friend  of  Scott ;  had  grown  up  with 
him  in  a  sort  of  dependance — a  relation  which  be¬ 
gets  a  kindly  feeling  in  the  party  that  confers  the 
benefits,  at  least.  How  strong  it  was  in  him  may 
be  inferred  from  his  remark  at  his  funeral.  “  I  feel/’ 
said  Scott,  mournfully,  as  the  solemnity  was  con¬ 
cluded,  “  I  feel  as  if  there  would  be  less  sunshine  for 
me  from  this  day  forth.”  It  must  be  admitted,  howr- 
ever,  that  his  intimacy  with  little  Rigdumfunnidos, 
whatever  apology  it  may  find  in  Scott’s  heart,  was 
not  very  creditable  to  his  taste. 

But  the  benevolent  principle  showed  itself  not 
merely  in  words,  but  in  the  more  substantial  form 
of  actions.  How  manv  are  the  cases  recorded  of 

j 

indigent  merit,  which  he  drew  from  obscurity,  and 
almost  warmed  into  life  by  his  own  generous  and 
most  delicate  patronage  !  Such  were  the  cases, 
among  others,  of  Leyden,  Weber,  Hogg.  How 
often  and  how  cheerfully  did  he  supply  such  litera¬ 
ry  contributions  as  were  solicited  by  his  friends — 
and  they  taxed  him  pretty  liberally — amid  all  the 
pressure  of  business,  and  at  the  height  of  his  fame, 
when  his  hours  were  golden  hours  to  him  !  In  the 
more  vulgar  and  easier  forms  of  charity,  he  did  not 
stint  his  hand,  though,  instead  of  direct  assistance, 
he  preferred  to  enable  others  to  assist  themselves  ; 
m  this  way  fortifying  their  good  habits,  and  reliev¬ 
ing  them  from  the  sense  of  personal  degradation. 

But  the  place  where  his  benevolent  impulses 
found  their  proper  theatre  for  expansion  was  his 

E  E 


218  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

own  borne ;  surrounded  by  a  happy  family,  and  dis¬ 
pensing  all  the  hospitalities  of  a  great  feudal  propri¬ 
etor.  “  There  are  many  good  things  in  life,”  he 
says,  in  one  of  his  letters,  “whatever  satirists  and 
misanthropes  may  say  to  the  contrary  ;  but  proba¬ 
bly  the  best  of  all,  next  to  a  conscience  void  of  of¬ 
fence  (without  which,  by-the-by,  they  can  hardly 
exist),  are  the  quiet  exercise  and  enjoyment  of  the 
social  feelings,  in  which  we  are  at  once  happy  our¬ 
selves,  and  the  cause  of  happiness  to  them  who  are 
dearest  to  us.”  Every  page  of  the  work,  almost, 
shows  us  how  intimately  he  blended  himself  with 
the  pleasures  and  the  pursuits  of  his  own  family, 
watched  over  the  education  of  his  children,  shared 
in  their  rides,  their  rambles,  and  sports,  losing  no  op¬ 
portunity  of  kindling  in  their  young  minds  a  love  of 
virtue,  and  honourable  principles  of  action.  He  de¬ 
lighted,  too,  to  collect  his  tenantry  around  him,  mul¬ 
tiplying  holydays,  when  young  and  old  might  come 
together  under  his  roof-tree,  when  the  jolly  punch 
was  liberally  dispensed  by  himself  and  his  wife 
among  the  elder  people,  and  the  Hogmanay  cakes 
and  pennies  were  distributed  among  the  young  ones; 
while  his  own  children  mingled  in  the  endless  reels 
and  hornpipes  on  the  earthen  floor,  and  the  laird 
himself,  mixing  in  the  groups  of  merry  faces,  had 
“  his  private  joke  for  every  old  wife  or  ‘gausie  carle,’ 
his  arch  compliment  for  the  ear  of  every  bonny  lass, 
and  his  hand  and  his  blessing  for  the  head  of  every 
little  Eppie  Dandle  from  Abbotstown  or  Broomylees.” 
“  Sir  Walter,”  said  one  of  his  old  retainers,  “  speaks 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


219 


to  every  man  as  if  lie  were  his  blood  relation.”  No 
wonder  that  they  should  have  returned  this  feeling 
with  something  warmer  than  blood  relations  usually 
do.  Mr.  Gillies  tells  an  anecdote  of  the  Ettrick 
Shepherd,  showing  how  deep  a  root  such  feelings, 
notwithstanding  his  rather  odd  way  of  expressing 
them,  sometimes,  had  taken  in  his  honest  nature. 
“Mr.  James  Ballantyne,  walking  home  with  him 
one  evening  from  Scott’s,  where,  by-the-by,  Hogg 
had  gone  uninvited,  happened  to  observe,  ‘  I  do  not 
at  all  like  this  illness  of  Scott’s.  I  have  often  seen 
him  look  jaded  of  late,  and  am  afraid  it  is  serious.’ 
‘  Haud  your  tongue,  or  I’ll  gar  you  measure  your 
length  on  the  pavement !’  replied  Hogg  ‘  You 
fause,  down-hearted  loon  that  you  are;  ye  daur  to 
speak  as  if  Scott  were  on  his  death-bed  !  It  cannot 
be — it  must  not  be !  I  will  not  suffer  you  to  speak 
that  gait.’  The  sentiment  was  like  that  of  Uncle 
Toby  at  the  bedside  of  Le  Fevre;  and,  at  these 
words,  the  Shepherd’s  voice  became  suppressed  with 
emotion.” 

But  Scott’s  sympathies  were  not  confined  to  his 
species ,  and  if  he  treated  them  like  blood  relations, 
he  treated  his  brute  followers  like  personal  friends. 
Every  one  remembers  old  Maida  and  faithful  Camp, 
the  “  dear  old  friend,”  whose  loss  cost  him  a  dinner. 
Mr.  Gillies  tells  us  that  he  went  into  his  study  on 
one  occasion,  when  he  was  winding  off  his  “  Vision 
of  Don  Roderick.”  “  ‘Look  here,’  said  the  poet,  ‘  I 
have  just  begun  to  copy  over  the  rhymes  that  you 
heard  to-day  and  applauded  so  much.  Return  to 


220  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

supper  if  you  can ;  only  don’t  be  late,  as  you  per¬ 
ceive  we  keep  early  hours,  and  Wallace  will  not  suf¬ 
fer  me  to  rest  after  six  in  the  morning.  Come,  good 
dog,  and  help  the  poet.’  At  this  hint,  Wallace  seat¬ 
ed  himself  upright  on  a  chair  next  his  master,  who 
offered  him  a  newspaper,  which  he  directly  seized, 
looking  very  wise,  and  holding  it  firmly  and  content¬ 
edly  in  his  mouth.  Scott  looked  at  him  with  great 
satisfaction,  for  he  was  excessively  fond  of  dogs. 
‘  Very  well,’  said  he  ;  ‘  now  we  shall  get  on.’  And  so 
I  left  them  abruptly,  knowing  that  my  ‘  absence 
would  be  the  best  company.’  ”  This  fellowship  ex¬ 
tended  much  farther  than  to  his  canine  followers,  of 
which,  including  hounds,  terriers,  mastiffs,  and  mon¬ 
grels,  he  had  certainly  a  goodly  assortment.  We 
find,  also,  Grimalkin  installed  in  a  responsible  post  in 
the  library,  and  out  of  doors  pet  hens,  pet  donkeys, 
and — tell  it  not  in  Judaea — a  pet  pig  ! 

Scott’s  sensibilities,  though  easily  moved  and 
widely  diffused,  were  warm  and  sincere.  None 
shared  more  cordially  in  the  troubles  of  his  friends ; 
but  on  all  such  occasions,  with  a  true  manly  feeling, 
he  thought  less  of  mere  sympathy  than  of  the  most 
effectual  way  for  mitigating  their  sorrows.  After  a 
touching  allusion  in  one  of  his  epistles  to  his  dear 
friend  Erskine’s  death,  he  concludes,  “  I  must  turn 
to  and  see  what  can  be  done  about  getting  some  pen¬ 
sion  for  his  daughters.”  In  another  passage,  which 
may  remind  one  of  some  of  the  exquisite  touches  in 
Jeremy  Taylor,  he  indulges  in  the  following  beauti¬ 
ful  strain  of  philosophy:  “The  last  three  or  four 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


221 


years  have  swept  away  more  than  half  the  friends 
with  whom  I  lived  in  habits  of  great  intimacy.  So 
it  must  be  with  us 

‘  When  ance  life’s  day  draws  near  the  gloamin’,’ 

and  yet  we  proceed  with  our  plantations  and  plans 
as  if  any  tree  but  the  sad  cypress  would  accompany 
us  to  the  grave,  where  our  friends  have  gone  before 
us.  It  is  the  way  of  the  world,  however,  and  must 
be  so ;  otherwise  life  would  be  spent  in  unavailing 
mourning  for  those  whom  w7e  have  lost.  It  is  better 
to  enjoy  the  society  of  those  who  remain  to  us.” 
His  well-disciplined  heart  seems  to  have  confessed 
the  influence  of  this  philosophy  in  his  most  ordinary 
relations.  “  I  can’t  help  it,”  was  a  favourite  maxim 
of  his,  “  and  therefore  will  not  think  about  it ;  for 
that,  at  least,  I  can  help.” 

Among  his  admirable  qualities  must  not  be  omit¬ 
ted  a  certain  worldly  sagacity  or  shrewdness,  which 
is  expressed  as  strongly  as  any  individual  trait  can 
be  in  some  of  his  portraits,  especially  in  the  excellent 
one  of  him  by  Leslie.  Indeed,  his  countenance 
would  seem  to  exhibit,  ordinarily,  much  more  of 

Dandie  Dinmont’s  benevolent  shrewdness  than  of 

% 

the  eye  glancing  from  earth  to  heaven,  which  in 
fancy  we  assign  to  the  poet,  and  which,  in  some 
moods,  must  have  been  his.  This  trait  may  be 
readily  discerned  in  his  business  transactions,  which 
he  managed  with  perfect  knowledge  of  character  as 
well  as  of  his  own  rights.  No  one  knew  better  than 
he  the  market  value  of  an  article ;  and,  though  he 


222  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

underrated  his  literary  wares  as  to  their  mere  liter¬ 
ary  rank,  he  set  as  high  a  money  value  on  them,  and 
made  as  sharp  a  bargain  as  any  of  the  trade  could 
have  done.  In  his  business  concerns,  indeed,  he 
managed  rather  too  much,  or,  to  speak  more  cor¬ 
rectly,  was  too  fond  of  mixing  up  mystery  in  his 
transactions,  which,  like  most  mysteries,  proved  of 
little  service  to  their  author.  Scott’s  correspond¬ 
ence,  especially  with  his  son,  affords  obvious  exam¬ 
ples  of  shrewdness,  in  the  advice  he  gives  as  to  his 
deportment  in  the  novel  situations  and  society  into 
which  the  young  cornet  was  thrown.  Occasionally, 
in  the  cautious  hints  about  etiquette  and  social  ob¬ 
servances,  we  may  be  reminded  of  that  ancient 
“  arbiter  elegantiarum,”  Lord  Chesterfield,  though 
it  must  be  confessed  there  is  throughout  a  high 
moral  tone,  which  the  noble  lord  did  not  very  scru¬ 
pulously  affect. 

Another  feature  in  Scott’s  character  was  his  loy¬ 
alty,  which  some  people  would  extend  into  a  more 
general  deference  to  rank  not  royal.  We  do  cer¬ 
tainly  meet  with  a  tone  of  deference,  occasionally, 
to  the  privileged  orders  (or,  rather,  privileged  per¬ 
sons,  as  the  king,  or  his  own  chief,  for  to  the  mass 
of  stars  and  garters  he  showed  no  such  respect), 
which  falls  rather  unpleasantly  on  the  ear  of  a  Re¬ 
publican.  But,  independently  of  the  feelings  which 
rightfully  belonged  to  him  as  the  subject  of  a  mon¬ 
archy,  and  without  which  he  must  have  been  a  false¬ 
hearted  subject,  his  own  were  heightened  by  a  poet¬ 
ical  colouring,  that  mingled  in  his  mind  even  with 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


223 


much  more  vulgar  relations  of  life.  At  the  opening 
of  the  regalia  in  Holyrood  House,  when  the  honest 
burgomaster  deposited  the  crown  on  the  head  of  one 
of  the  young  ladies  present,  the  good  man  probably 
saw  nothing  more  in  the  dingy  diadem  than  wre 
should  have  seen — a  headpiece  for  a  set  of  men  no 
better  than  himself,  and,  if  the  old  adage  of  a  “  dead 
lion”  holds  true,  not  quite  so  good.  But  to  Scott’s 
imagination  other  views  were  unfolded.  “A  thou¬ 
sand  years  their  cloudy  wings  expanded”  around 
him,  and,  in  the  dim  visions  of  distant  times,  he  be¬ 
held  the  venerable  line  of  monarchs  who  had  swayed 
the  councils  of  his  country  in  peace  and  led  her  ar¬ 
mies  in  battle.  The  “golden  round”  became  in  his 
eye  the  symbol  of  his  nation’s  glory ;  and  as  he  heav¬ 
ed  a  heavy  oath  from  his  heart,  he  left  the  room  in 
agitation,  from  which  he  did  not  speedily  recover. 
There  was  not  a  spice  of  affectation  in  this — for  who 
ever  accused  Scott  of  affectation  ? — but  there  was  a 
good  deal  of  poetry,  the  poetry  of  sentiment. 

We  have  said  that  this  feeling  mingled  in  the 
more  common  concerns  of  his  life.  His  cranium, 
indeed,  to  judge  from  his  busts,  must  have  exhibited 
a  strong  development  of  the  organ  of  veneration.  He 
regarded  with  reverence  everything  connected  with 
antiquity.  His  establishment  was  on  the  feudal 
scale ;  his  house  was  fashioned  more  after  the  feudal 
ages  than  his  own ;  and  even  in  the  ultimate  distri¬ 
bution  of  his  fortune,  although  the  circumstance  of 
having  made  it  himself  relieved  him  from  any  legal 
necessity  of  contravening  the  suggestions  of  natural 


224  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

justice,  he  showed  such  attachment  to  the  old  aristo¬ 
cratic  usage  as  to  settle  nearly  the  whole  of  it  on  his 
eldest  son. 

The  influence  of  this  poetic  sentiment  is  discern¬ 
ible  in  his  most  trifling  acts,  in  his  tastes,  his  love  of 
the  arts,  his  social  habits.  His  museum,  house,  and 
grounds  were  adorned  with  relics,  curious  not  so 
much  from  their  workmanship  as  their  historic  asso¬ 
ciations.  It  was  the  ancient  fountain  from  Edin¬ 
burgh,  the  Tolbooth  lintels,  the  blunderbuss  and 
spleughan  of  Rob  Roy,  the  drinking-cup  of  Prince 
Charlie,  or  the  like.  It  was  the  same  in  the  arts. 
The  tunes  he  loved  w7ere  not  the  refined  and  com¬ 
plex  melodies  of  Italy,  but  the  simple  notes  of  his 
native  minstrelsy,  from  the  bagpipe  of  John  of  Skye, 
or  from  the  harp  of  his  own  lovely  and  accomplish¬ 
ed  daughter.  So,  also,  in  painting.  It  was  not  the 
masterly  designs  of  the  great  Flemish  and  Italian 
schools  that  adorned  his  walls,  but  some  portrait  of 
Claverhouse,  or  of  Queen  Mary,  or  of  “glorious  old 
John.”  In  architecture  w^e  see  the  same  spirit  in 
the  singular  “  romance  of  stone  and  lime,”  which 
may  be  said  to  have  been  his  own  device,  down  to 
the  minutest  details  of  its  finishing.  We  see  it  again 
in  the  joyous  celebrations  of  his  feudal  tenantry,  the 
good  old  festivals,  the  Hogmanay,  the  Kirn,  &c., 
long  fallen  into  desuetude,  when  the  old  Highland 
piper  sounded  the  same  wild  pibroch  that  had  so 
often  summoned  the  clans  together,  for  war  or  for 
wassail,  among  the  fastnesses  of  the  mountains.  To 
the  same  source,  in  fine,  may  be  traced  the  feelings 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


225 


of  superstition  which  seemed  to  hover  round  Scott’s 
mind  like  some  “  strange,  mysterious  dream,”  giving 
a  romantic  colouring  to  his  conversation  and  his 
writings,  but  rarely.,  if  ever,  influencing  his  actions. 
It  was  a  poetic  sentiment. 

Scott  was  a  Tory  to  the  backbone.  Had  he 
come  into  the  world  half  a  century  sooner,  he 
would,  no  doubt,  have  made  a  figure  under  the  ban¬ 
ner  of  the  Pretender.  He  was  at  no  great  pains  to 
disguise  his  political  creed ;  witness  his  jolly  drink¬ 
ing-song  on  the  acquittal  of  Lord  Melville.  This 
was  verse  ;  but  his  prose  is  not  much  more  qualified. 
“  As  for  Whiggery  in  general,”  he  says,  in  one  of 
his  letters,  “  I  can  only  say  that,  as  no  man  can  be 
said  to  be  utterly  overset  until  his  rump  has  been 
higher  than  his  head,  so  I  cannot  read  in  history  of 
any  free  state  which  has  been  brought  to  slavery 
until  the  rascal  and  uninstructed  populace  had  had 
their  short  hour  of  anarchical  government,  which 
naturally  leads  to  the  stern  repose  of  military  des¬ 
potism . With  these  convictions,  I  am  very  jeal¬ 

ous  of  Whiggery  under  all  modifications,  and  I  must 
say  my  acquaintance  with  the  total  want  of  principle 
in  some  of  its  warmest  professors  does  not  tend  to 
recommend  it.”  With  all  this,  however,  his  Toryism 
was  not,  practically,  of  that  sort  which  blunts  a  man’s 
sensibilities  for  those  who  are  not  of  the  same  por¬ 
celain  clay  with  himself.  No  man,  Whig  or  Radical, 
ever  had  less  of  this  pretension,  or  treated  his  infe¬ 
riors  with  greater  kindness,  and  even  familiarity ;  a 
circumstance  noticed  by  every  visiter  at  his  liospi- 

F  F 


226  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

table  mansion  who  saw  him  strolling  round  his 
grounds,  taking  his  pinch  of  snuff  out  of  the  mull  of 
some  “  gray-haired  old  hedger,”  or  leaning  on  honest 
Tom  Purdie’s  shoulder,  and  taking  sweet  counsel  as 
to  the  right  method  of  thinning  a  plantation.  But, 
with  all  this  familiarity,  no  man  wras  better  served 
by  his  domestics.  It  was  the  service  of  love,  the 
only  service  that  power  cannot  command  and  money 
cannot  buy. 

Akin  to  the  feelings  of  which  we  have  been  speak¬ 
ing  wras  the  truly  chivalrous  sense  of  honour  which 
stamped  his  whole  conduct.  We  do  not  mean  that 
Hotspur  honour  which  is  roused  only  by  the  drum 
and  fife — though  he  says  of  himself,  “  I  like  the  sound 
of  a  drum  as  well  as  Uncle  Toby  ever  did” — but 
that  honour  which  is  deep-seated  in  the  heart  of  ev¬ 
ery  true  gentleman,  shrinking  with  sensitive  delica¬ 
cy  from  the  least  stain,  or  imputation  of  a  stain,  on 
his  faith.  “If  we  lose  everything  else,”  writes  he,  on 
a  trying  occasion  to  a  friend  who  was  not  so  nice  in 
this  particular,  “  we  will  at  least  keep  our  honour  un¬ 
blemished.”  It  reminds  one  of  the  pithy  epistle  of  a 
kindred  chivalrous  spirit,  Francis  the  First,  to  his 
mother,  from  the  unlucky  field  of  Pavia  :  “  Tout  est 
perdu,  fors  l’honneur.”  Scott’s  latter  years  furnished 
a  noble  commentary  on  the  sincerity  of  his  manly 
principles. 

Little  is  said  directly  of  his  religious  sentiments  in 
the  biography.  They  seem  to  have  harmonized  well 
with  his  political.  He  was  a  member  of  the  English 
Church,  a  stanch  champion  of  established  forms,  and 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


227 


a  sturdy  enemy  to  everything  that  savoured  of  the 
sharp  tang  of  Puritanism.  On  this  ground,  indeed, 
the  youthful  Samson  used  to  wrestle  manfully  with 
worthy  Dominie  Mitchell,  who,  no  doubt,  furnished 
many  a  screed  of  doctrine  for  the  Rev.  Peter  Pound- 
text,  Master  Nehemiah  Holdenough,  and  other  lights 
of  the  Covenant.  Scott  was  no  friend  to  cant  under 
any  form.  But,  w  hatever  were  his  speculative  opin¬ 
ions,  in  practice  his  heart  overflowed  with  that 
charity  which  is  the  life-spring  of  our  religion  ;  and 
whenever  he  takes  occasion  to  allude  to  the  subject 
directly,  he  testifies  a  deep  reverence  for  the  truths 
of  revelation,  as  well  as  for  its  Divine  original. 

Whatever  estimate  be  formed  of  Scott’s  moral 
qualities,  his  intellectual  were  of  a  kind  which  well 
entitled  him  to  the  epithet  conferred  on  Lope  de 
Vega,  “  monstruo  de  naturaleza”  (a  miracle  of  na¬ 
ture).  His  mind  scarcely  seemed  to  be  subjected 
to  the  same  laws  that  control  the  rest  of  his  species. 
His  memory,  as  is  usual,  was  the  first  of  his  powers 
fully  developed.  While  an  urchin  at  school,  he 
could  repeat  whole  cantos,  he  says,  of  Ossian  and 
of  Spenser.  In  riper  years  we  are  constantly  meet¬ 
ing  with  similar  feats  of  his  achievement.  Thus, 
on  one  occasion,  he  repeated  the  whole  of  a  poem 
in  some  penny  magazine,  incidentally  alluded  to, 
which  he  had  not  seen  since  he  was  a  schoolboy. 
On  another,  when  the  Ettrick  Shepherd  was  trying 
ineffectually  to  fish  up  from  his  own  recollections 
some  scraps  of  a  ballad  he  had  himself  manufactured 
years  before,  Scott  called  to  him,  “Take  your  pencil, 


228  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

Jemmy,  and  I  will  tell  it  to  you,  word  for  word 
and  he  accordingly  did  so.  But  it  is  needless  to 
multiply  examples  of  feats  so  startling  as  to  look 
almost  like  the  tricks  of  a  conjuror. 

What  is  most  extraordinary  is,  that  while  lie  ac¬ 
quired  with  such  facility,  that  the  bare  perusal,  or 
the  repetition  of  a  thing  once  to  him,  was  sufficient, 
he  yet  retained  it  with  the  greatest  pertinacity. 
Other  men’s  memories  are  so  much  jostled  in  the 
rough  and  tumble  of  life,  that  most  of  the  facts  get 
sifted  out  nearly  as  fast  as  they  are  put  in  ;  so  that 
we  are  in  the  same  dilemma  with  those  unlucky 
daughters  of  Danaus,  of  schoolboy  memory,  obliged 
to  spend  the  greater  part  of  the  time  in  replenishing. 
But  Scott’s  memory  seemed  to  be  hermetically  seal¬ 
ed,  suffering  nothing  once  fairly  in  to  leak  out  again. 
This  was  of  immense  service  to  him  when  he  took 
up  the  business  of  authorship,  as  his  whole  multifa¬ 
rious  stock  of  facts,  whether  from  books  or  observa¬ 
tion,  became,  in  truth,  his  stock  in  trade,  ready  fur¬ 
nished  to  his  hands.  This  may  explain  in  part — 
though  it  is  not  less  marvellous — the  cause  of  his 
rapid  execution  of  works,  often  replete  with  rare 
and  curious  information.  The  labour,  the  prepara¬ 
tion,  had  been  already  completed.  His  whole  life 
had  been  a  business  of  preparation.  When  he  ven¬ 
tured,  as  in  the  case  of  “  Rokeby”  and  of  “  Quentin 
Durward,”  on  ground  with  which  he  had  not  been 
familiar,  we  see  how  industriously  he  set  about  new 
acquisitions. 

In  most  of  the  prodigies  of  memory  which  we 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


229 


have  ever  known,  the  overgrowth  of  that  faculty 
seems  to  have  been  attained  at  the  expense  of  all 
the  others  ;  but  in  Scott,  the  directly  opposite  power 
of  the  imagination,  the  inventive  power,  was  equally 
strongly  developed,  and  at  the  same  early  age ;  for 
we  find  him  renowned  for  story- craft  while  at 
school.  How  many  a  delightful  fiction,  warm  with 
the  flush  of  ingenuous  youth,  did  he  not  throw  away 
on  the  ears  of  thoughtless  childhood,  which,  had 
they  been  duly  registered,  might  now  have  amused 
children  of  a  larger  growth  !  We  have  seen  Scott’s 
genius  in  its  prime  and  its  decay.  The  frolic  graces 
of  childhood  are  alone  wanting. 

The  facility  with  which  he  threw  his  ideas  into 
language  was  also  remarked  very  early.  One  of  his 
first  ballads,  and  a  long  one,  was  dashed  off  at  the 
dinner- table.  His  “  Lay”  was  written  at  the  rate 
of  a  canto  a  week.  “  Waverley,”  or,  rather,  the  last 
two  volumes  of  it,  cost  the  evenings  of  a  summer 
month.  Who  that  has  ever  read  the  account  can 
forget  the  movements  of  that  mysterious  hand,  as 
described  by  the  two  students  from  the  window  of 
a  neighbouring  attic,  throwing  off  sheet  after  sheet, 
with  untiring  rapidity,  of  the  pages  destined  to  im¬ 
mortality  1  Scott  speaks  pleasantly  enough  of  this 
marvellous  facility  in  a  letter  to  his  friend  Morritt : 
“  When  once  I  set  my  pen  to  the  paper,  it  will  walk 
fast  enough.  I  am  sometimes  tempted  to  leave  it 
alone,  and  see  whether  it  will  not  write  as  well 
without  the  assistance  of  my  head  as  with  it.  A 
hopeful  prospect  for  the  reader.” 


230  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

As  to  the  time  and  place  of  composition,  he  ap¬ 
pears  to  have  been  nearly  indifferent.  He  possessed 
entire  power  of  abstraction,  and  it  mattered  little 
whether  he  were  nailed  to  his  clerk’s  desk,  under  the 
drowsy  eloquence  of  some  long-winded  barrister,  or 
dashing  his  horse  into  the  surf  on  Portobello  sands, 
or  rattling  in  a  post-chaise,  or  amid  the  hum  of  guests 
in  his  overflowing  halls  at  Abbotsford — it  mattered 
not ;  the  same  well-adjusted  little  packet,  “  nicely 
corded  and  sealed,”  was  sure  to  be  ready,  at  the 
regular  time,  for  the  Edinburgh  mail.  His  own  ac¬ 
count  of  his  composition  to  a  friend,  who  asked 
when  he  found  time  for  it,  is  striking  enough.  “  Oh,” 
said  Scott,  “  I  lie  simmering  over  things  for  an  hour 
or  so  before  I  get  up,  and  there’s  the  time  I  am 
dressing  to  overhaul  my  half  sleeping,  half  waking 
projet  de  chapitre ;  and  when  I  get  the  paper  before 
me,  it  commonly  runs  off  pretty  easily.  Besides,  I 
often  take  a  doze  in  the  plantations,  and  while  Tom 
marks  out  a  dike  or  a  drain  as  I  have  directed,  . 
one’s  fancy  may  be  running  its  ain  riggs  in  some 
other  world.”  Never  did  this  sort  of  simmering 
produce  such  a  splendid  bill  of  fare. 

The  quality  of  the  material,  under  such  circum¬ 
stances,  is,  in  truth,  the  great  miracle  of  the  whole. 
The  execution  of  so  much  work,  as  a  mere  feat  of 
penmanship,  would  undoubtedly  be  very  extraordi¬ 
nary,  but  as  a  mere  scrivener’s  miracle,  would  be 
hardly  worth  recording.  It  is  a  sort  of  miracle  that 
is  every  day  performing  under  our  own  eyes,  as  it 
were,  by  Messrs.  James,  Bulwer,  &  Co.,  who,  in  all 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


231 


the  various  staples  of  “  comedy,  history,  pastoral- 
comical,  historical-pastoral,”  &c..,  supply  their  own 
market,  and  ours  too,  with  all  that  can  be  wanted. 
In  Spain,  and  in  Italy  also,  we  may  find  abundance 
of  improvvisatori  and  improvvisatrici ,  who  perform 
miracles  of  the  same  sort,  in  verse,  too,  in  languages 
whose  vowel  terminations  make  it  very  easy  for  the 
thoughts  to  tumble  into  rhyme,  without  any  malice 
prepense.  Sir  Stamford  Raffles,  in  his  account  of 
Java,  tells  us  of  a  splendid  avenue  of  trees  before  his 
house,  which  in  the  course  of  a  year  shot  up  to  the 
height  of  forty  feet.  But  who  shall  compare  the 
brief,  transitory  splendours  of  a  fungus  vegetation  with 
the  mighty  monarch  of  the  forest,  sending  his  roots 
deep  into  the  heart  of  the  earth,  and  his  branches, 
amid  storm  and  sunshine,  to  the  heavens  ?  And  is 
not  the  latter  the  true  emblem  of  Scott?  For  who 
can  doubt  that  his  prose  creations,  at  least,  will  gath¬ 
er  strength  with  time,  living  on  through  succeed¬ 
ing  generations,  even  when  the  language  in  which 
they  are  written,  like  those  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
shall  cease  to  be  a  living  language  ? 

The  only  writer  deserving,  in  these  respects,  to 
be  named  with  Scott,  is  Lope  de  Vega,  who  in  his 
own  day  held  as  high  a  rank  in  the  republic  of  let¬ 
ters  as  our  great  contemporary.  The  beautiful  dra¬ 
mas  which  he  threw  off  for  the  entertainment  of  the 
capital,  and  whose  success  drove  Cervantes  from  the 
stage,  outstripped  the  abilities  of  an  amanuensis  to 
copy.  His  intimate  friend,  Montalvan,  one  of  the 
most  popular  and  prolific  authors  of  the  time,  tells 


i 


232  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

us  that  lie  undertook  with  Lope  once  to  supply  the 
theatre  with  a  comedy — in  verse,  and  in  three  acts, 
as  the  Spanish  dramas  usually  were — at  a  very  short 
notice.  In  order  to  get  through  his  half  as  soon  as 
his  partner,  he  rose  by  two  in  the  morning,  and  at 
eleven  had  completed  it;  an  extraordinary  feat,  cer¬ 
tainly,  since  a  play  extended  to  between  thirty  and 
forty  pages,  of  a  hundred  lines  each.  Walking  into 
the  garden,  he  found  his  brother  poet  pruning  an 
orange-tree.  “  Well,  how  do  you  get  on  V’  said 
Montalvan.  “  Very  well, ”  answered  Lope.  “I  rose 
betimes — at  five ;  and  after  I  had  got  through,  eat 
my  breakfast ;  since  which  I  have  written  a  letter  of 
fifty  triplets,  and  watered  the  whole  of  the  garden, 
which  has  tired  me  a  good  deal.” 

But  a  little  arithmetic  will  best  show  the  compar¬ 
ative  fertility  of  Scott  and  Lope  de  Vega.  It  is  so 
german  to  the  present  matter,  that  we  shall  make 
no  apology  for  transcribing  here  some  computations 
from  our  last  July  number  ;  and  as  few  of  our  read¬ 
ers,  we  suspect,  have  the  air-tight  memory  of  Sir 
Walter,  we  doubt  not  that  enough  of  it  has  escaped 
them  by  this  time  to  excuse  us  from  equipping  it  with 
one  of  those  “  cocked  hats  and  walking-sticks”  with 
which  he  furbished  up  an  old  story. 

“It  is  impossible  to  state  the  results  of  Lope  de 
Vega’s  labours  in  any  form  that  will  not  powerfully 
strike  the  imagination.  Thus,  he  has  left  twenty- 
one  million  three  hundred  thousand  verses  in  print, 
besides  a  mass  of  manuscript.  He  furnished  the 
theatre,  according  to  the  statement  of  his  intimate 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


233 


friend,  Montalvan,  with  eighteen  hundred  regular 
plays,  and  four  hundred  autos  or  religious  dramas — 
all  acted.  He  composed,  according  to  his  own  state¬ 
ment,  more  than  one  hundred  comedies  in  the  al¬ 
most  incredible  space  of  twenty-four  hours  each ; 
and  a  comedy  averaged  between  two  and  three  thou¬ 
sand  verses,  great  part  of  them  rhymed,  and  inter¬ 
spersed  with  sonnets,  and  other  more  difficult  forms 
of  versification.  He  lived  seventy-two  years ;  and 
supposing  him  to  have  employed  fifty  of  that  period 
in  composition,  although  he  filled  a  variety  of  en¬ 
grossing  vocations  during  that  time,  he  must  have 
averaged  a  play  a  week,  to  say  nothing  of  twenty- 
one  volumes,  quarto,  of  miscellaneous  works,  inclu¬ 
ding  five  epics,  written  in  his  leisure  moments,  and 
all  now  in  print ! 

“  The  only  achievements  we  can  recall  in  liter¬ 
ary  history  bearing  any  resemblance  to,  though  fall¬ 
ing  far  short  of  this,  are  those  of  our  illustrious  con¬ 
temporary,  Sir  Walter  Scott.  The  complete  edition 
of  his  works,  recently  advertised  by  Murray,  with 
the  edition  of  two  volumes  of  which  Murray  has 
not  the  copyright,  probably  contains  ninety  volumes, 
small  octavo.  [To  these  should  farther  be  added  a 
large  supply  of  matter  for  the  Edinburgh  Annual 
Register,  as  well  as  other  anonymous  contributions.] 
Of  these,  forty-eight  volumes  of  novels,  and  twenty- 
one  of  history  and  biography,  were  produced  be¬ 
tween  1814  and  1831,  or  in  seventeen  years.  These 
would  give  an  average  of  four  volumes  a  year,  or 
one  for  every  three  months  during  the  whole  of  that 

G  G 


234  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


period ;  to  which  must  be  added  twenty-one  vol¬ 
umes  of  poetry  and  prose,  previously  published.  The 
mere  mechanical  execution  of  so  much  work,  both 
in  his  case  and  Lope  de  Vega’s,  would  seem  to  he 
scarce  possible  in  the  limits  assigned.  Scott,  too, 
was  as  variously  occupied  in  other  ways  as  his 
Spanish  rival ;  and  probably,  from  the  social  hospi¬ 
tality  of  his  life,  spent  a  much  larger  portion  of  his 
time  in  no  literary  occupation  at  all.” 

Of  all  the  wonderful  dramatic  creations  of  Lope 
de  Vega’s  genius,  what  now  remains?  Two  or 
three  plays  only  keep  possession  of  the  stage,  and 
few,  very  few,  are  still  read  with  pleasure  in  the 
closet.  They  have  never  been  collected  into  a  uni¬ 
form  edition,  and  are  now  met  with  in  scattered 
sheets  only  on  the  shelves  of  some  mousing  book¬ 
seller,  or  collected  in  miscellaneous  parcels  in  the 
libraries  of  the  curious. 

Scott,  with  all  his  facility  of  execution,  had  none 
of  that  pitiable  affectation  sometimes  found  in  men 
of  genius,  who  think  that  the  possession  of  this  qual¬ 
ity  may  dispense  with  regular,  methodical  habits  of 
study.  He  was  most  economical  of  time.  He  did 
not,  like  Voltaire,  speak  of  it  as  “a  terrible  thing 
that  so  much  time  should  be  wasted  in  talking.” 
He  was  too  little  of  a  pedant,  and  far  too  benevo¬ 
lent,  not  to  feel  that  there  are  other  objects  worth 
living  for  than  mere  literary  fame ;  but  he  grudged 
the  waste  of  time  on  merely  frivolous  and  heartless 
objects.  “  As  for  dressing  when  we  are  quite  alone,” 
he  remarked  one  day  to  Mr.  Gillies,  whom  he  had 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


235 


taken  home  with  him  to  a  family  dinner,  “it  is  out 
of  the  question.  Life  is  not  long  enough  for  such 
fiddle-faddle.”  In  the  early  part  of  his  life  he  worked 
late  at  night,  but,  subsequently,  from  a  conviction  of 
the  superior  healthiness  of  early  rising,  as  well  as 
the  desire  to  secure,  at  all  hazards,  a  portion  of  the 
day  for  literary  labour,  he  rose  at  five  the  year 
round ;  no  small  effort,  as  any  one  will  admit  who 
has  seen  the  pain  and  difficulty  which  a  regular  bird 
of  night  finds  in  reconciling  his  eyes  to  daylight. 
He  was  scrupulously  exact,  moreover,  in  the  distri¬ 
bution  of  his  hours.  In  one  of  his  letters  to  his 
friend  Terry,  the  player,  replete,  as  usual,  with  ad¬ 
vice  that  seems  to  flow  equally  from  the  head  and 
the  heart,  he  says,  in  reference  to  the  practice  of 
dawdling  away  one’s  time,  “  A  habit  of  the  mind  it 
is  which  is  very  apt  to  beset  men  of  intellect  and 
talent,  especially  when  their  time  is  not  regularly 
filled  up,  but  left  to  their  own  arrangement.  But  it 
is  like  the  ivy  round  the  oak,  and  ends  by  limiting, 
if  it  does  not  destroy,  the  power  of  manly  and  ne¬ 
cessary  exertion.  I  must  love  a  man  so  well,  to 
whom  I  offer  such  a  word  of  advice,  that  I  will  not 
apologize  for  it,  but  expect  to  hear  you  are  become 
as  regular  as  a  Dutch  clock — hours ,  quarters ,  minutes , 
all  marked  and  appropriated ”  With  the  same  em¬ 
phasis  he  inculcates  the  like  habits  on  his  son.  If 
any  man  might  dispense  with  them,  it  was  surely 
Scott.  But  he  knew  that  without  them  the  greatest 
powers  of  mind  will  run  to  waste,  and  water  but  the 
desert. 


236  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

Some  of  the  literary  opinions  of  Scott  are  singu¬ 
lar,  considering,  too,  the  position  he  occupied  in  the 
world  of  letters.  “  I  promise  you,”  he  says,  in  an 
epistle  to  an  old  friend,  “  my  oaks  will  outlast  my 
laurels ;  and  I  pique  myself  more  on  my  composi¬ 
tions  for  manure  than  on  any  other  compositions  to 
which  I  was  ever  accessary.”  This  may  seem  bad¬ 
inage  ;  but  he  repeatedly,  both  in  writing  and  con¬ 
versation,  places  literature,  as  a  profession,  below 
other  intellectual  professions,  and  especially  the  mil¬ 
itary.  The  Duke  of  Wellington,  the  representative 
of  the  last,  seems  to  have  drawn  from  him  a  very 
extraordinary  degree  of  deference,  which  we  cannot 
but  think  smacks  a  little  of  that  strong  relish  for 
gunpowder  which  he  avows  in  himself. 

It  is  not  very  easy  to  see  on  what  this  low  esti¬ 
mate  of  literature  rested.  As  a  profession,  it  has 
too  little  in  common  with  more  active  ones,  to  afford 
much  ground  for  running  a  parallel.  The  soldier 
has  to  do  with  externals ;  and  his  contests  and  tri¬ 
umphs  are  over  matter  in  its  various  forms,  whether 
of  man  or  material  nature.  The  poet  deals  with 
the  bodiless  forms  of  air,  of  fancy  lighter  than  air. 
His  business  is  contemplative,  the  other’s  is  active, 
and  depends  for  its  success  on  strong  moral  energy 
and  presence  of  mind.  He  must,  indeed,  have  ge¬ 
nius  of  the  highest  order  to  effect  his  own  combina¬ 
tions,  anticipate  the  movements  of  his  enemy,  and 
dart  with  eagle  eye  on  his  vulnerable  point.  But 
who  shall  say  that  this  practical  genius,  if  we 
may  so  term  it,  is  to  rank  higher  in  the  scale  than 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


237 


the  creative  power  of  the  poet,  the  spark  from  the 
mind  of  divinity  itself  1 

The  orator  might  seem  to  afford  better  ground  for 
comparison,  since,  though  his  theatre  of  action  is 
abroad,  he  may  be  said  to  work  with  much  the  same 
tools  as  the  writer.  Yet  how  much  of  his  success 
depends  on  qualities  other  than  intellectual!  “Ac¬ 
tion,”  said  the  father  of  eloquence,  “action,  action 
are  the  three  most  essential  things  to  an  orator.” 
How  much  depends  on  the  look,  the  gesture,  the 
magical  tones  of  voice,  modulated  to  the  passions  he 
has  stirred ;  and  how  much  on  the  contagious  sym¬ 
pathies  of  the  audience  itself,  which  drown  every¬ 
thing  like  criticism  in  the  overwhelming  tide  of 
emotion !  If  any  one  would  know  how  much,  let 
him,  after  patiently  standing 

“  till  his  feet  throb, 

And  his  head  thumps,  to  feed  upon  the  breath 

Of  patriots  bursting  with  heroic  rage,” 

read  the  same  speech  in  the  columns  of  a  morning 
newspaper,  or  in  the  well-concocted  report  of  the 
orator  himself.  The  productions  of  the  writer  are 
subjected  to  a  fiercer  ordeal.  He  has  no  excited 
sympathies  of  numbers  to  hurry  his  readers  along 
over  his  blunders.  He  is  scanned  in  the  calm  silence 
of  the  closet.  Every  flower  of  fancy  seems  here  to 
wither  under  the  rude  breath  of  criticism  ;  every 
link  in  the  chain  of  argument  is  subjected  to  the 
touch  of  prying  scrutiny,  and  if  there  be  the  least 
flaw  in  it,  it  is  sure  to  be  detected.  There  is  no  tri¬ 
bunal  so  stern  as  the  secret  tribunal  of  a  man’s  own 


238  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

closet,  far  removed  from  all  the  sympathetic  impul¬ 
ses  of  humanity.  Surely  there  is  no  form  in  which 
intellect  can  be  exhibited  to  the  world  so  completely 
stripped  of  all  adventitious  aids  as  the  form  of  writ¬ 
ten  composition.  But,  says  the  practical  man,  let 
us  estimate  things  by  their  utility.  “You  talk  of 
the  poems  of  Homer,”  said  a  mathematician,  “  but, 
after  all,  what  do  they  prove  ?”  A  question  which 
involves  an  answer  somewhat  too  voluminous  for 
the  tail  of  an  article.  But  if  the  poems  of  Homer 
were,  as  Heeren  asserts,  the  principal  bond  which 
held  the  Grecian  states  together,  and  gave  them  a 
national  feeling,  they  “  prove”  more  than  all  the 
arithmeticians  of  Greece  —  and  there  were  many 
cunning  ones  in  it  —  ever  proved.  The  results  of 
military  skill  are  indeed  obvious.  The  soldier,  by 
a  single  victory,  enlarges  the  limits  of  an  empire  ; 
he  may  do  more — he  may  achieve  the  liberties  of  a 
nation,  or  roll  hack  the  tide  of  barbarism  ready  to 
overwhelm  them.  Wellington  was  placed  in  such  a 
position,  and  nobly  did  he  do  his  work  ;  or,  rather, 
he  was  placed  at  the  head  of  such  a  gigantic  moral 
and  physical  apparatus  as  enabled  him  to  do  it. 
With  his  own  unassisted  strength,  of  course,  he 
could  have  done  nothing.  But  it  is  on  his  own  sol¬ 
itary  resources  that  the  great  writer  is  to  rely.  And 
yet,  who  shall  say  that  the  triumphs  of  Wellington 
have  been  greater  than  those  of  Scott,  whose  works 
are  familiar  as  household  words  to  every  fireside  in 
his  own  land,  from  the  castle  to  the  cottage ;  have 
crossed  oceans  and  deserts,  and,  with  healing  on 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


239 


their  wings,  found  their  way  to  the  remotest  regions; 
have  helped  to  form  the  character,  until  his  own 
mind  may  be  said  to  be  incorporated  into  those  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  his  fellow-men  1  Who 
is  there  that  has  not,  at  some  time  or  other,  felt  the 
heaviness  of  his  heart  lightened,  his  pains  mitigated, 
and  his  bright  moments  of  life  made  still  brighter  by 
the  magical  touches  of  his  genius  1  And  shall  we 
speak  of  his  victories  as  less  real,  less  serviceable  to 
humanity,  less  truly  glorious  than  those  of  the  great¬ 
est  captain  of  his  day  1  The  triumphs  of  the  war¬ 
rior  are  bounded  by  the  narrow  theatre  of  his  own 
age  ;  but  those  of  a  Scott  or  a  Shakspeare  will  be 
renewed  with  greater  and  greater  lustre  in  ages  yet 
unborn,  when  the  victorious  chieftain  shall  be  for¬ 
gotten,  or  shall  live  only  in  the  song  of  the  minstrel 
and  the  page  of  the  chronicler. 

But,  after  all,  this  sort  of  parallel  is  not  very  gra¬ 
cious  nor  very  philosophical,  and,  to  say  truth,  is 
somewhat  foolish.  We  have  been  drawn  into  it  by 
the  not  random,  but  very  deliberate,  and,  in  our  poor 
judgment,  very  disparaging  estimate  by  Scott  of  his 
own  vocation ;  and,  as  we  have  taken  the  trouble  to 
write  it,  our  readers  will  excuse  us  from  blotting  it 
out.  There  is  too  little  ground  for  the  respective 
parties  to  stand  on  for  a  parallel.  As  to  the  pedan¬ 
tic  cui  bono  standard,  it  is  impossible  to  tell  the  final 
issues  of  a  single  act ;  how  can  we  then  hope  to 
those  of  a  course  of  action  ?  As  for  the  honour  of 
different  vocations,  there  never  was  a  truer  sentence 
than  the  stale  one  of  Pope — stale  now,  because  it  is 
so  true — 


240  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

“  Act  well  your  part — there  all  the  honour  lies.” 

And  it  is  the  just  boast  of  our  own  country,  that  in 
no  civilized  nation  is  the  force  of  this  philanthropic 
maxim  so  nobly  illustrated  as  in  ours — thanks  to  our 
glorious  institutions. 

A  great  cause,  probably,  of  Scott’s  low  estimate  of 
letters  was  the  facility  with  which  he  wrote.  What 
costs  us  little  we  are  apt  to  prize  little.  If  diamonds 
were  as  common  as  pebbles,  and  gold-dust  as  any 
other,  who  would  stoop  to  gather  them  ?  It  was  the 
prostitution  of  his  muse,  by-the-by,  for  this  same 
gold-dust,  which  brought  a  sharp  rebuke  on  the  poet 
from  Lord  Byron,  in  his  “  English  Bards 

“  For  this  we  spurn  Apollo’s  venal  son 

a  coarse  cut,  and  the  imputation  about  as  true  as 
most  satire,  that  is,  not  true  at  all.  This  was  indi¬ 
ted  in  his  lordship’s  earlier  days,  when  he  most 
chivalrously  disclaimed  all  purpose  of  bartering  his 
rhymes  for  gold.  He  lived  long  enough,  however, 
to  weigh  his  literary  wares  in  the  same  money-bal¬ 
ance  used  by  more  vulgar  manufacturers ;  and,  in 
truth,  it  would  be  ridiculous  if  the  produce  of  the 
brain  should  not  bring  its  price  in  this  form  as  well 
as  any  other.  There  is  little  danger,  we  imagine,  of 
finding  too  much  gold  in  the  bowels  of  Parnassus. 

Scott  took  a  more  sensible  view  of  things.  In  a 
letter  to  Ellis,  written  soon  after  the  publication  of 
“  The  Minstrelsy,”  he  observes,  “  People  may  say 
this  and  that  of  the  pleasure  of  fame,  or  of  profit,  as 
a  motive  of  writing,  I  think  the  only  pleasure  is  in 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


241 


the  actual  exertion  and  research,  and  I  would  no 
more  write  upon  any  other  terms  than  I  would  hunt 
merely  to  dine  upon  hare  soup.  At  the  same  time, 
if  credit  and  profit  came  unlooked  for,  I  would  no 
more  quarrel  \yith  them  than  with  the  soup.”  Even 
this  declaration  was  somewhat  more  magnanimous 
than  was  warranted  by  his  subsequent  conduct. 
The  truth  is,  he  soon  found  out,  especially  after  the 
Waverley  vein  had  opened,  that  he  had  hit  on  a 
gold-mine.  The  prodigious  returns  he  got  gave  the 
whole  thing  the  aspect  of  a  speculation.  Every  new 
work  was  an  adventure,  and  the  proceeds  naturally 
suggested  the  indulgence  of  the  most  extravagant 
schemes  of  expense,  which,  in  their  turn,  stimulated 
him  to  fresh  efforts.  In  this  way  the  “  profits”  be¬ 
came,  whatever  they  might  have  been  once,  a  prin¬ 
cipal  incentive  to,  as  they  were  the  recompense  of, 
exertion.  His  productions  were  cash  articles,  and 
were  estimated  by  him  more  on  the  Hudibrastic  rule 
of  “the  real  worth  of  a  thing”  than  by  any  fanciful 
standard  of  fame.  He  bowed  with  deference  to  the 
judgment  of  the  booksellers,  and  trimmed  his  sails 
dexterously  as  the  “  aura  popularis”  shifted.  “  If  it 
is  na  weil  hobbit,”  he  writes  to  his  printer,  on  turn 
ing  out  a  less  lucky  novel,  “  we’ll  bobbit  again.” 
His  muse  was  of  that  school  who  seek  the  greatest 
happiness  of  the  greatest  number.  We  can  hardly 
imagine  him  invoking  her  like  Milton : 

“  Still  govern  thou  my  song, 

Urania,  and  fit  audience  find,  though  few.” 


Still  less  can  we  imagine  him,  like  the  blind  old 

H  H 


242  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

bard,  feeding  his  soul  with  visions  of  posthumous 
glory,  and  spinning  out  epics  for  five  pounds  apiece. 

It  is  singular  that  Scott,  although  he  set  as  high 
a  money  value  on  his  productions  as  the  most  en¬ 
thusiastic  of  the  “  trade”  could  have  done,  in  a  liter¬ 
ary  view  should  have  held  them  so  cheap.  “What¬ 
ever  others  may  be,”  he  said,  “  I  have  never  been  a 
partisan  of  my  own  poetry ;  as  John  Wilkes  de¬ 
clared,  that,  ‘  in  the  height  of  his  success,  he  had 
himself  never  been  a  Wilhite.’  ”  Considering  the 
poet’s  popularity,  this  was  but  an  indifferent  com¬ 
pliment  to  the  taste  of  his  age.  With  all  this  dis¬ 
paragement  of  his  own  productions,  however,  Scott 
was  not  insensible  to  criticism.  He  says  some¬ 
where  that,  “  if  he  had  been  conscious  of  a  single 
vulnerable  point  in  himself,  he  would  not  have  taken 
up  the  business  of  writing;”  but,  on  another  occa¬ 
sion,  he  writes,  “  I  make  it  a  rule  never  to  read  the 
attacks  made  upon  me;”  and  Captain  Hall  remarks, 
“  He  never  reads  the  criticisms  on  his  books ;  this 
I  know,  from  the  most  unquestionable  authority. 
Praise,  he  says,  gives  him  no  pleasure,  and  censure 
annoys  him.”  Madame  de  Graffigny  says,  also,  of 
Voltaire,  “  that  he  was  altogether  indifferent  to 
praise,  but  the  least  word  from  his  enemies  drove 
him  crazy.”  Yet  both  these  authors  banqueted  on 
the  sweets  of  panegyric  as  much  as  any  who  ever 
lived.  They  were  in  the  condition  of  an  epicure 
whose  palate  has  lost  its  relish  for  the  dainty  fare 
in  which  it  has  been  so  long  revelling,  without  be¬ 
coming  less  sensible  to  the  annoyances  of  sharper 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 


243 


and  coarser  flavours.  It  may  afford  some  consola¬ 
tion  to  humble  mediocrity,  to  the  less  fortunate  vo¬ 
taries  of  the  muse,  that  those  who  have  reached  the 
summit  of  Parnassus  are  not  much  more  contented 
with  their  condition  than  those  who  are  scrambling 
among  the  bushes  at  the  bottom  of  the  mountain. 
The  fact  seems  to  be,  as  Scott  himself  intimates 
more  than  once,  that  the  joy  is  in  the  chase,  wheth¬ 
er  in  the  prose  or  the  poetry  of  life. 

But  it  is  high  time  to  terminate  our  lucubrations, 
wdiicli,  however  imperfect  and  unsatisfactory,  have 
already  run  to  a  length  that  must  trespass  on  the 
patience  of  the  reader.  We  rise  from  the  perusal 
of  these  delightful  volumes  with  the  same  sort  of 
melancholy  feeling  with  which  we  wake  from  a 
pleasant  dream.  The  concluding  volume,  of  which 
such  ominous  presage  is  given  in  the  last  sentence 
of  the  fifth,  has  not  yet  reached  us ;  but  we  know 
enough  to  anticipate  the  sad  catastrophe  it  is  to  un¬ 
fold  of  the  drama.  In  those  which  we  have  seen, 
we  have  beheld  a  succession  of  interesting  charac¬ 
ters  come  upon  the  scene  and  pass  away  to  their 
long  home.  “  Bright  eyes  now  closed  in  dust,  gay 
voices  forever  silenced,”  seem  to  haunt  us,  too,  as 
we  write.  The  imagination  reverts  to  Abbotsford 
— the  romantic  and  once  brilliant  Abbotsford — the 
magical  creation  of  his  hands.  We  see  its  halls  ra¬ 
diant  with  the  hospitality  of  his  benevolent  heart; 
thronged  with  pilgrims  from  every  land,  assembled 
to  pay  homage  at  the  shrine  of  genius ;  echoing  to 
the  blithe  music  of  those  festal  holydays  when 


244  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

young  and  old  met  to  renew  the  usages  of  the  good 
old  times. 

“  These  were  its  charms,  but  all  these  charms  are  fled.” 

Its  courts  are  desolate,  or  trodden  only  by  the 
foot  of  the  stranger.  The  stranger  sits  under  the 
shadows  of  the  trees  which  his  hand  planted.  The 
spell  of  the  enchanter  is  dissolved  ;  his  wand  is  bro¬ 
ken  ;  and  the  mighty  minstrel  himself  now  sleeps  in 
the  bosom  of  the  peaceful  scenes  embellished  by  his 
taste,  and  which  his  genius  has  made  immortal. 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  245 


CHATEAUBRIAND’S  ENGLISH  LITERATURE* 

OCTOBER,  1839. 

There  are  few  topics  of  greater  attraction,  or, 
when  properly  treated,  of  higher  importance,  than 
literary  history.  For  what  is  it  but  a  faithful  regis¬ 
ter  of  the  successive  steps  by  which  a  nation  has 
advanced  in  the  career  of  civilization  \  Civil  his¬ 
tory  records  the  crimes  and  the  follies,  the  enterpri¬ 
ses,  discoveries,  and  triumphs,  it  may  be,  of  human¬ 
ity.  But  to  what  do  all  these  tend,  or  of  what 
moment  are  they  in  the  eye  of  the  philosopher,  ex¬ 
cept  as  they  accelerate  or  retard  the  march  of  civil¬ 
ization  1  The  history  of  literature  is  the  history  of 
the  human  mind.  It  is,  as  compared  with  other 
histories,  the  intellectual  as  distinguished  from  the 
material — the  informing  spirit,  as  compared  with  the 
outward  and  visible. 

When  such  a  view  of  the  mental  progress  of  a 
people  is  combined  with  individual  biography,  we 
have  all  the  materials  for  the  deepest  and  most  va¬ 
ried  interest.  The  life  of  the  man  of  letters  is  not 
always  circumscribed  by  the  walls  of  a  cloister;  and 
was  not,  even  in  those  days  when  the  cloister  was 
the  familiar  abode  of  science.  The  history  of  Dante 
and  of  Petrarch  is  the  best  commentary  on  that  of 
their  age.  In  later  times,  the  man  of  letters  has 

*  “  Sketches  of  English  Literature  ;  with  considerations  on  the  Spirit 
of  the  Times,  Men,  and  Revolutions.  By  the  Viscount  de  Chateaubri¬ 
and.”  2  vols.,  8vo.  London,  1836. 


246  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

taken  part  in  all  the  principal  concerns  of  public 
and  social  life.  But,  even  when  the  story  is  to  de¬ 
rive  its  interest  from  personal  character,  what  a  store 
of  entertainment  is  supplied  by  the  eccentricities  of 
genius — the  joys  and  sorrows,  not  visible  to  vulgar 
eyes,  but  which  agitate  his  finer  sensibilities  as  pow¬ 
erfully  as  the  greatest  shocks  of  worldly  fortune 
would  a  hardier  and  less  visionary  temper!  What 
deeper  interest  can  romance  afford  than  is  to  be 
gathered  from  the  melancholy  story  of  Petrarch, 
Tasso,  Alfieri,  Rousseau,  Byron,  Burns,  and  a  crowd 
of  familiar  names,  whose  genius  seems  to  have  been 
given  them  only  to  sharpen  their  sensibility  to  suf¬ 
fering  1  What  matter  if  their  sufferings  were,  for 
the  most  part,  of  the  imagination  ?  They  were  not 
the  less  real  to  them .  They  lived  in  a  world  of  im¬ 
agination,  and,  by  the  gift  of  genius,  unfortunate  to 
its  proprietor,  have  known  how,  in  the  language  of 
one  of  the  most  unfortunate,  “  to  make  madness 
beautiful”  in  the  eyes  of  others. 

But,  notwithstanding  the  interest  and  importance 
of  literary  history,  it  has  hitherto  received  but  little 
attention  from  English  writers.  No  complete  survey 
of  the  treasures  of  our  native  tongue  has  been  yet 
produced,  or  even  attempted.  The  earlier  periods 
of  the  poetical  development  of  the  nation  have  been 
well  illustrated  by  various  antiquaries.  Warton  has 
brought  the  history  of  poetry  down  to  the  season  of 
its  first  vigorous  expansion — the  age  of  Elizabeth. 
But  he  did  not  penetrate  beyond  the  magnificent 
vestibule  of  the  temple.  Dr.  Johnson’s  “Lives  of 


Chateaubriand’s  emglish  literature.  247 


the  Poets”  have  done  much  to  supply  the  deficiency 
in  this  department.  But  much  more  remains  to  be 
done  to  afford  the  student  anything  like  a  complete 
view  of  the  progress  of  poetry  in  England.  John¬ 
son’s  work,  as  every  one  knows,  is  conducted  on 
the  most  capricious  and  irregular  plan.  The  biog¬ 
raphies  were  dictated  by  the  choice  of  the  book¬ 
seller.  Some  of  the  most  memorable  names  in  Brit¬ 
ish  literature  are  omitted  to  make  way  for  a  host  of 
minor  luminaries,  whose  dim  radiance,  unassisted  by 
the  critic’s  magnifying  lens,  would  never  have  pene¬ 
trated  to  posterity.  The  same  irregularity  is  visible 
in  the  proportion  he  has  assigned  to  each  of  his 
subjects  ;  the  principal  figures,  or  what  should  have 
been  such,  being  often  thrown  into  the  background, 
to  make  room  for  some  subordinate  person  whose 
story  was  thought  to  have  more  interest. 

Besides  these  defects  of  plan,  the  critic  was  cer¬ 
tainly  deficient  in  sensibility  to  the  more  delicate, 
the  minor  beauties  of  poetic  sentiment.  He  ana¬ 
lyzes  verse  in  the  cold-blooded  spirit  of  a  chemist, 
until  all  the  aroma,  which  constituted  its  principal 
charm,  escapes  in  the  decomposition.  By  this  kind 
of  process,  some  of  the  finest  fancies  of  the  Muse, 
the  lofty  dithyrambics  of  Gray,  the  ethereal  effusions 
of  Collins,  and  of  Milton  too,  are  rendered  sufficient¬ 
ly  vapid.  In  this  sort  of  criticism,  all  the  effect  that 
relies  on  impressions  goes  for  nothing.  Ideas  are 
alone  taken  into  the  account,  and  all  is  weighed  in 
the  same  hard,  matter-of-fact  scales  of  common 
sense,  like  so  much  solid  prose.  What  a  sorry  fig- 


248  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ure  would  Byron’s  Muse  make  subjected  to  such  an 
ordeal!  The  doctor’s  taste  in  composition,  to  judge 
from  his  own  style,  was  not  of  the  highest  order.  It 
was  a  style,  indeed,  of  extraordinary  power,  suited 
to  the  expression  of  his  original  thinking,  bold,  vig¬ 
orous,  and  glowing  with  all  the  lustre  of  pointed 
antithesis.  But  the  brilliancy  is  cold,  and  the  orna¬ 
ments  are  much  too  florid  and  overcharged  for  a 
graceful  effect.  When  to  these  minor  blemishes  we 
add  the  graver  one  of  an  obliquity  of  judgment,  pro¬ 
duced  by  inveterate  political  and  religious  prejudice, 
which  has  thrown  a  shadow  over  some  of  the  bright¬ 
est  characters  subjected  to  his  pencil,  we  have  sum¬ 
med  up  a  fair  amount  of  critical  deficiencies.  With 
all  this,  there  is  no  one  of  the  works  of  this  great 
and  good  man  in  which  he  has  displayed  more  of  the 
strength  of  his  mighty  intellect,  shown  a  more  pure 
and  masculine  morality,  more  sound  principles  of 
criticism  in  the  abstract,  more  acute  delineation  of 
character,  and  more  gorgeous  splendour  of  diction. 
His  defects,  however,  such  as  they  are,  must  prevent 
his  maintaining  with  posterity  that  undisputed  dicta¬ 
torship  in  criticism  which  was  conceded  to  him  in 
his  own  day.  We  must  do  justice  to  his  errors  as 
well  as  to  his  excellences,  in  order  that  we  may  do 
justice  to  the  characters  which  have  come  under  his 
censure.  And  we  must  admit  that  his  work,  how¬ 
ever  admirable  as  a  gallery  of  splendid  portraits,  is 
inadequate  to  convey  anything  like  a  complete  or 
impartial  view  of  English  poetry. 

The  English  have  made  but  slender  contributions 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  249 

to  the  history  of  foreign  literatures.  The  most 
important,  probably,  are  Roscoe’s  works,  in  which 
literary  criticism,  though  but  a  subordinate  feature, 
is  the  most  valuable  part  of  the  composition.  As 
to  anything  like  a  general  survey  of  this  department, 
they  are  wholly  deficient.  The  deficiency,  indeed, 
is  likely  to  be  supplied,  to  a  certain  extent,  by  the 
work  of  Mr.  Hallam,  now  in  progress  of  publica¬ 
tion;  the  first  volume  of  which — the  only  one  which 
has  yet  issued  from  the  press — gives  evidence  of  the 
same  curious  erudition,  acuteness,  honest  impartial¬ 
ity,  and  energy  of  diction  which  distinguish  the 
other  writings  of  this  eminent  scholar.  But  the 
extent  of  his  work,  limited  to  four  volumes,  pre¬ 
cludes  anything  more  than  a  survey  of  the  most 
prominent  features  of  the  vast  subject  he  has  under¬ 
taken. 

The  Continental  nations,  under  serious  discour¬ 
agements,  too,  have  been  much  more  active  than  the 
British  in  this  field.  The  Spaniards  can  boast  a 
general  history  of  letters,  extending  to  more  than 
twenty  volumes  in  length,  and  compiled  with  suffi¬ 
cient  impartiality.  The  Italians  have  several  such. 
Yet  these  are  the  lands  of  the  Inquisition,  where 
reason  is  hoodwinked,  and  the  honest  utterance  of 
opinion  has  been  recompensed  by  persecution,  exile, 
and  the  stake.  How  can  such  a  people  estimate 
the  character  of  compositions  which,  produced  un¬ 
der  happier  institutions,  are  instinct  with  the  spirit 
of  freedom  l  How  can  they  make  allowance  for  the 
manifold  eccentricities  of  a  literature  where  thought 

Ii 


250  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

is  allowed  to  expatiate  in  all  the  independence  of  in¬ 
dividual  caprice  1  How  can  they  possibly,  trained 
to  pay  such  nice  deference  to  outward  finish  and 
mere  verbal  elegance,  have  any  sympathy  with  the 
rough  and  homely  beauties  which  emanate  from  the 
people  and  are  addressed  to  the  people  1 

The  French,  nurtured  under  freer  forms  of  gov¬ 
ernment,  have  contrived  to  come  under  a  system  of 
literary  laws  scarcely  less  severe.  Their  first  great 
dramatic  production  gave  rise  to  a  scheme  of  critical 
legislation,  which  has  continued  ever  since  to  press 
on  the  genius  of  the  nation  in  all  the  higher  walks 
of  poetic  art.  Amid  all  the  mutations  of  state,  the 
tone  of  criticism  has  remained  essentially  the  same 
to  the  present  century,  when,  indeed,  the  boiling  pas¬ 
sions  and  higher  excitements  of  a  revolutionary  age 
have  made  the  classic  models  on  which  their  litera¬ 
ture  was  cast  appear  somewhat  too  frigid,  and  a 
warmer  colouring  has  been  sought  by  an  infusion  of 
English  sentiment.  But  this  mixture,  or,  rather,  con¬ 
fusion  of  styles,  neither  French  nor  English,  seems 
to  rest  on  no  settled  principles,  and  is,  probably,  too 
alien  to  the  genius  of  the  people  to  continue  perma¬ 
nent. 

The  French,  forming  themselves  early  on  a  for¬ 
eign  and  antique  model,  were  necessarily  driven  to 
rules,  as  a  substitute  for  those  natural  promptings 
which  have  directed  the  course  of  other  modern  na¬ 
tions  in  the  career  of  letters.  Such  rules,  of  course, 
while  assimilating  them  to  antiquity,  drew  them  aside 
from  sympathy  with  their  own  contemporaries.  How 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  251 

can  they,  thus  formed  on  an  artificial  system,  enter 
into  the  spirit  of  other  literatures  so  uncongenial  with 
their  own  1 

That  the  French  continued  subject  to  such  a  sys¬ 
tem,  with  little  change  to  the  present  age,  is  evinced 
by  the  example  of  Voltaire,  a  writer  whose  lawless 
ridicule 

“  like  the  wind, 

Blew  where  it  listed,  laying  all  things  prone,” 

but  whose  revolutionary  spirit  made  no  serious  chan¬ 
ges  in  the  principles  of  the  national  criticism.  In¬ 
deed,  his  commentaries  on  Corneille  furnish  evidence 
of  a  willingness  to  contract  still  closer  the  range  of 
the  poet,  and  to  define  more  accurately  the  laws  by 
which  his  movements  were  to  be  controlled.  Vol¬ 
taire’s  history  affords  an  evidence  of  the  truth  of  the 
Horatian  maxim,  “  naturam  expellas ,”  &c.  In  his 
younger  days  he  passed  some  time,  as  is  well  known, 
in  England,  and  contracted  there  a  certain  relish 
for  the  strange  models  which  came  under  his  obser¬ 
vation.  On  his  return  he  made  many  attempts  to 
introduce  the  foreign  school  with  which  he  had  be¬ 
come  acquainted  to  his  own  countrymen.  His  van¬ 
ity  was  gratified  by  detecting  the  latent  beauties  of 
his  barbarian  neighbours,  and  by  being  the  first  to 
point  them  out  to  his  countrymen.  It  associated 
him  with  names  venerated  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Channel,  and  at  home  transferred  a  part  of  their 
glory  to  himself.  Indeed,  he  was  not  backward  in 
transferring  as  much  as  he  could  of  it,  by  borrowing 
on  his  own  account,  where  he  could  venture,  mani- 


252  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

bus  plenis ,  and  with  very  little  acknowledgment. 

.  The  French  at  length  became  so  far  reconciled  to 
the  monstrosities  of  their  neighbours,  that  a  regular 
translation  of  Shakspeare,  the  lord  of  the  British 
Pandemonium,  was  executed  by  Letourneur,  a  schol¬ 
ar  of  no  great  merit ;  hut  the  work  was  well  receiv¬ 
ed.  Voltaire,  the  veteran,  in  his  solitude  of  Ferney, 
was  roused,  by  the  applause  bestowed  on  the  Eng¬ 
lish  poet  in  his  Parisian  costume,  to  a  sense  of  his 
own  imprudence.  He  saw,  in  imagination,  the  al¬ 
tars  which  had  been  raised  to  him,  as  well  as  to  the 
other  master-spirits  of  the  national  drama,  in  a  fair 
way  to  be  overturned,  in  order  to  make  room  for  an 
idol  of  his  own  importation.  “  Have  you  seen,”  he 
writes,  speaking  of  Letourneur’s  version,  “  his  abom¬ 
inable  trash  l  Will  you  endure  the  affront  put  upon 
France  by  it  ?  There  are  no  epithets  bad  enough, 
nor  foofs-caps,  nor  pillories  enough  in  all  France 
for  such  a  scoundrel.  The  blood  tingles  in  my  old 
veins  in  speaking  of  him.  What  is  the  most  dread¬ 
ful  part  of  the  affair  is,  the  monster  has  his  party  in 
France  ;  and,  to  add  to  my  shame  and  consterna¬ 
tion,  it  was  I  who  first  sounded  the  praises  of  this 
Shakspeare ;  I  who  first  showed  the  pearls,  picked 
here  and  there,  from  his  overgrown  dungheap.  Lit¬ 
tle  did  I  anticipate  that  I  was  helping  to  trample 
under  foot,  at  some  future  day,  the  laurels  of  Racine 
and  Corneille  to  adorn  the  brows  of  a  barbarous 
player — this  drunkard  of  a  Shakspeare.”  Not  con¬ 
tent  with  this  expectoration  of  his  bile,  the  old  poet 
transmitted  a  formal  letter  of  remonstrance  to  D’Alem- 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  253 

bert,  which  was  read  publicly,  as  designed,  at  a  reg¬ 
ular  seance  of  the  Academy.  The  document,  after 
expatiating  at  length  on  the  blunders,  vulgarities, 
and  indecencies  of  the  English  bard,  concludes  with 
this  appeal  to  the  critical  body  he  was  addressing : 
“  Paint  to  yourselves,  gentlemen,  Louis  the  Four¬ 
teenth  in  his  gallery  at  Versailles,  surrounded  by  his 
brilliant  court:  a  tatterdemalian  advances,  covered 
with  rags,  and  proposes  to  the  assembly  to  abandon 
the  tragedies  of  Racine  for  a  mountebank,  full  of 
grimaces,  with  nothing  but  a  lucky  hit,  now  and 
then,  to  redeem  them.” 

At  a  later  period,  Ducis,  the  successor  of  Voltaire, 
if  we  remember  right,  in  the  Academy,  a  writer  of 
far  superior  merit  to  Letourneur,  did  the  British 
bard  into  much  better  French  than  his  predecessor; 
though  Ducis,  as  he  takes  care  to  acquaint  us,  “  did 
his  best  to  efface  those  startling  impressions  of  hor¬ 
ror  which  would  have  damned  his  author  in  the 
polished  theatres  of  Paris  !”  Voltaire  need  not 
have  taken  the  affair  so  much  to  heart.  Shaks- 
peare,  reduced  within  the  compass,  as  much  as  pos¬ 
sible,  of  the  rules,  with  all  his  eccentricities  and  pe¬ 
culiarities — all  that  made  him  English,  in  fact — 
smoothed  away,  may  be  tolerated,  and  to  a  certain 
extent  countenanced,  in  the  “  polished  theatres  of 
Paris.”  But  this  is  not 

“  Shakspeare,  Nature's  child, 

Warbling  his  native  wood-notes  wild.” 

The  Germans  are  just  the  antipodes  of  their 
French  neighbours.  Coming  late  on  the  arena  of 


254  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

modern  literature,  they  would  seem  to  be  particular¬ 
ly  qualified  for  excelling  in  criticism  by  the  variety 
of  styles  and  models  for  their  study  supplied  by 
other  nations.  They  have,  accordingly,  done  won¬ 
ders  in  this  department,  and  have  extended  their 
critical  wand  over  the  remotest  regions,  dispelling 
the  mists  of  old  prejudice,  and  throwing  the  light  of 
learning  on  what  before  was  dark  and  inexplicable. 
They  certainly  are  entitled  to  the  credit  of  a  singu¬ 
larly  cosmopolitan  power  of  divesting  themselves  of 
local  and  national  prejudice.  No  nation  has  done 
so  much  to  lay  the  foundations  of  that  reconciling 
spirit  of  criticism,  which,  instead  of  condemning  a 
difference  of  taste  in  different  nations  as  a  departure 
from  it,  seeks  to  explain  such  discrepancies  by  the 
peculiar  circumstances  of  the  nation,  and  thus  from 
the  elements  of  discord,  as  it  were,  to  build  up  a 
universal  and  harmonious  system.  The  exclusive 
and  unfavourable  views  entertained  by  some  of  their 
later  critics  respecting  the  French  literature,  indeed, 
into  which  they  have  been  urged,  no  doubt,  by  a  de¬ 
sire  to  counteract  the  servile  deference  shown  to  that 
literature  by  their  countrymen  of  the  preceding  age, 
forms  an  important  exception  to  their  usual  candour. 

As  general  critics,  however,  the  Germans  are  open 
to  grave  objections.  The  very  circumstances  of 
their  situation,  so  favourable,  as  we  have  said,  to  the 
formation  of  a  liberal  criticism,  have  encouraged  the 
taste  for  theories  and  for  system-building,  always  un- 
propitious  to  truth.  Whoever  broaches  a  theory  has 
a  hard  battle  to  fight  with  conscience.  If  the  theo- 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  255 


ry  cannot  conform  to  the  facts,  so  much  the  worse 
for  the  facts,  as  some  wag  has  said;  they  must,  at 
all  events,  conform  to  the  theory.  The  Germans 
have  put  together  hypotheses  with  the  facility  with 
which  children  construct  card-houses,  and  many  of 
them  bid  fair  to  last  as  long.  They  show  more  in¬ 
dustry  in  accumulating  materials  than  taste  or  dis¬ 
cretion  in  their  arrangement.  They  carry  their  fan¬ 
tastic  imagination  beyond  the  legitimate  province  of 
the  muse  into  the  sober  fields  of  criticism.  Their 
philosophical  systems,  curiously  and  elaborately  de¬ 
vised,  with  much  ancient  lore  and  solemn  imagin¬ 
ings,  may  remind  one  of  some  of  those  venerable 
English  Cathedrals  where  the  magnificent  and  mys¬ 
terious  Gothic  is  blended  with  the  clumsy  Saxon. 
The  effect,  on  the  whole,  is  grand,  but  grotesque 
withal. 

The  Germans  are  too  often  sadly  wanting  in  dis¬ 
cretion,  or,  in  vulgar  parlance,  taste.  They  are  per¬ 
petually  overleaping  the  modesty  of  nature.  They 
are  possessed  by  a  cold-blooded  enthusiasm,  if  we 
may  say  so — since  it  seems  to  come  rather  from  the 
head  than  the  heart — which  spurs  them  on  over  the 
plainest  barriers  of  common  sense,  until  even  the 
right  becomes  the  wrong.  A  striking  example  of 
these  defects  is  furnished  by  the  dramatic  critic, 
Schlegel,  whose  “Lectures”  are,  or  may  be,  familiar 
to  every  reader,  since  they  have  been  reprinted  in 
the  English  version  in  this  country.  No  critic,  not 
even  a  native,  has  thrown  such  a  flood  of  light  on  the 
characteristics  of  the  sweet  bard  of  Avon.  He  has 


256  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

made  himself  so  intimately  acquainted  with  the  pe¬ 
culiar  circumstances  of  the  poet’s  age  and  country, 
that  he  has  been  enabled  to  speculate  on  his  produc¬ 
tions  as  those  of  a  contemporary.  In  this  way  he 
has  furnished  a  key  to  the  mysteries  of  his  composi¬ 
tion,  has  reduced  what  seemed  anomalous  to  system, 
and  has  supplied  Shakspeare’s  own  countrymen  with 
new  arguments  for  vindicating  the  spontaneous  sug¬ 
gestions  of  feeling  on  strictly  philosophical  princi¬ 
ples.  Not  content  with  this  important  service,  he, 
as  usual,  pushes  his  argument  to  extremes,  vindicates 
obvious  blemishes  as  necessary  parts  of  a  system,  and 
calls  on  us  to  admire,  in  contradiction  to  the  most 
ordinary  principles  of  taste  and  common  sense. 
Thus,  for  example,  speaking  of  Shakspeare’s  noto¬ 
rious  blunders  in  geography  and  chronology,  he 
coolly  tells  us,  “I  undertake  to  prove  that  Shaks¬ 
peare’s  anachronisms  are,  lor  the  most  part,  com¬ 
mitted  purposely,  and  after  great  consideration.”  In 
the  same  vein,  speaking  of  the  poet’s  villanous  puns 
and  quibbles,  which,  to  his  shame,  or,  rather,  that  of 
his  age,  so  often  bespangle  with  tawdry  brilliancy  the 
majestic  robe  of  the  Muse,  he  assures  us  that  “  the 
poet  here  probably,  as  everywhere  else,  has  follow¬ 
ed  principles  which  will  bear  a  strict  examination.” 
But  the  intrepidity  of  criticism  never  went  farther 
than  in  the  conclusion  of  this  same  analysis,  where 
he  unhesitatingly  assigns  several  apocryphal  plays  to 
Shakspeare,  gravely  informing  us  that  the  last  three, 
“Sir  John  Oldcastle,”  “A  Yorkshire  Tragedy,”  and 
“  Thomas  Lord  Cromwell,”  of  which  the  English 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  257 


critics  speak  with  unreserved  contempt,  “  are  not 
only  unquestionably  Shakspeare’s,  but,  in  his  judg¬ 
ment,  rank  among  the  best  and  ripest  of  his  works  !” 
The  old  bard,  could  he  raise  his  head  from  the 
tomb,  where  none  might  disturb  his  bones,  would 
exclaim,  we  imagine,  “  Non  tali  auxilio !” 

It  shows  a  tolerable  degree  of  assurance  in  a  critic 
thus  to  dogmatize  on  nice  questions  of  verbal  resem¬ 
blance  which  have  so  long  baffled  the  natives  of  the 
country,  who,  on  such  questions,  obviously  can  be 
the  only  competent  judges.  It  furnishes  a  striking 
example  of  the  want  of  discretion  noticeable  in  so 
many  of  the  German  scholars.  With  all  these  de¬ 
fects,  however,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  they  have 
wddely  extended  the  limits  of  rational  criticism,  and, 
by  their  copious  stores  of  erudition,  furnished  the 
student  with  facilities  for  attaining  the  best  points  of 
view  for  a  comprehensive  survey  of  both  ancient  and 
modern  literature. 

The  English  have  had  advantages,  on  the  whole,, 
greater  than  those  of  any  other  people,  for  perfecting 
the  science  of  general  criticism.  They  have  had  no 
academies  to  bind  the  wing  of  genius  to  the  earth  by 
their  thousand  wire-drawn  subtleties.  No  Inquisi¬ 
tion  has  placed  its  burning  seal  upon  the  lip,  and 
thrown  its  dark  shadow  over  the  recesses  of  the 
soul.  They  have  enjoyed  the  inestimable  privilege 
of  thinking  what  they  pleased,  and  of  uttering  what 
they  thought.  Their  minds,  trained  to  independ¬ 
ence,  have  had  no  occasion  to  shrink  from  encoun¬ 
tering  any  topic,  and  have  acquired  a  masculine  con- 

K  K 


258  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

fidence,  indispensable  to  a  calm  appreciation  of  the 
mighty  and  widely-diversified  productions  of  genius, 
as  unfolded  under  the  influences  of  as  widely-diver¬ 
sified  institutions  and  national  character.  Their 
own  literature,  with  chameleon-like  delicacy,  has 
reflected  all  the  various  aspects  of  the  nation  in  the 
successive  stages  of  its  history.  The  rough,  roman¬ 
tic  beauties  and  gorgeous  pageantry  of  the  Eliza¬ 
bethan  age,  the  stern,  sublime  enthusiasm  of  the 
Commonwealth,  the  cold  brilliancy  of  Queen  Anne, 
and  the  tumultuous  movements  and  ardent  sensibili¬ 
ties  of  the  present  generation,  all  have  been  reflect¬ 
ed  as  in  a  mirror,  in  the  current  of  English  literature, 
as  it  has  flowed  down  through  the  lapse  of  ages.  It 
is  easy  to  understand  what  advantages  this  cultiva¬ 
tion  of  all  these  different  styles  of  composition  at 
home  must  give  the  critic  in  divesting  himself  of 
narrow  and  local  prejudice,  and  in  appreciating  the 
genius  of  foreign  literatures,  in  each  of  which  some 
one  or  other  of  these  different  styles  has  found  fa¬ 
vour.  To  this  must  be  added  the  advantages  de 
rived  from  the  structure  of  the  English  language  it¬ 
self,  which,  compounded  of  the  Teutonic  and  the 
Latin,  offers  facilities  for  a  comprehension  of  other 
literatures  not  afforded  by  those  languages,  as  the 
German  and  the  Italian,  for  instance,  almost  exclu¬ 
sively  derived  from  but  one  of  them. 

With  all  this,  the  English,  as  we  have  remarked, 
have  made  fewer  direct  contributions  to  general  lit¬ 
erary  criticism  than  the  Continental  nations,  unless, 
indeed,  we  take  into  the  account  the  periodical  crit- 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  259 


icism,  which  has  covered  the  whole  field  with  a 
light  skirmishing,  very  unlike  any  systematic  plan 
of  operations.  The  good  effect  of  this  guerilla  war¬ 
fare  may  well  be  doubted.  Most  of  these  critics  for 
the  nonce  (and  we  certainly  are  competent  judges 
on  this  point)  come  to  their  work  with  little  pre¬ 
vious  preparation.  Their  attention  has  been  habit¬ 
ually  called,  for  the  most  part,  in  other  directions, 
and  they  throw  off  an  accidental  essay  in  the  brief 
intervals  of  other  occupation.  Hence  their  views 
are  necessarily  often  superficial,  and  sometimes  con¬ 
tradictory,  as  may  be  seen  from  turning  over  the 
leaves  of  any  journal  where  literary  topics  are  wide¬ 
ly  discussed ;  for,  whatever  consistency  may  be  de¬ 
manded  in  politics  or  religion,  very  free  scope  is 
offered,  even  in  the  same  journal,  to  literary  specu¬ 
lation.  Even  when  the  article  may  have  been  the 
fruit  of  a  mind  ripened  by  study  and  meditation  on 
congenial  topics,  it  too  often  exhibits  only  the  partial 
view  suggested  by  the  particular  and  limited  direc¬ 
tion  of  the  author’s  thoughts  in  this  instance.  Truth 
is  not  much  served  by  this  irregular  process  ;  and 
the  general  illumination,  indispensable  to  a  full  and 
fair  survey  of  the  whole  ground,  can  never  be  sup¬ 
plied  from  such  scattered  and  capricious  gleams, 
thrown  over  it  at  random. 

Another  obstacle  to  a  right  result  is  founded  in 
the  very  constitution  of  review-writing.  Miscella¬ 
neous  in  its  range  of  topics,  and  addressed  to  a  mis¬ 
cellaneous  class  of  readers,  its  chief  reliance  for  suc¬ 
cess,  in  competition  with  the  thousand  novelties  of 


260  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

the  day,  is  in  the  temporary  interest  it  can  excite 
Instead  of  a  conscientious  discussion  and  cautious 
examination  of  the  matter  in  hand,  we  too  often  find 
an  attempt  to  stimulate  the  popular  appetite  by  pi¬ 
quant  sallies  of  wit,  by  caustic  sarcasm,  or  by  a  pert, 
dashing  confidence,  that  cuts  the  knot  it  cannot 
readily  unloose.  Then,  again,  the  spirit  of  period¬ 
ical  criticism  would  seem  to  he  little  favourable  to 
perfect  impartiality.  The  critic,  shrouded  in  his 
secret  tribunal,  too  often  demeans  himself  like  a 
stern  inquisitor,  whose  business  is  rather  to  convict 
than  to  examine.  Criticism  is  directed  to  scent  out 
blemishes  instead  of  beauties.  “  Judex  damnatur 
cum  nocens  absolvitur ”  is  the  bloody  motto  of  a  well- 
known  British  periodical,  which,  under  this  piratical 
flag,  has  sent  a  broadside  into  many  a  gallant  bark 
that  deserved  better  at  its  hands. 

When  we  combine  with  all  this  the  spirit  of  pa¬ 
triotism,  or,  what  passes  for  such  with  nine  tenths 
of  the  world,  the  spirit  of  national  vanity,  we  shall 
find  abundant  motives  for  a  deviation  from  a  just, 
impartial  estimate  of  foreign  literatures.  And  if  we 
turn  over  the  pages  of  the  best-conducted  English 
journals,  we  shall  probably  find  ample  evidence  of 
the  various  causes  we  have  enumerated.  We  shall 
find,  amid  abundance  of  shrewd  and  sarcastic  ob¬ 
servation,  smart  skirmish  of  wit,  and  clever  antithe¬ 
sis,  a  very  small  infusion  of  sober,  dispassionate  crit¬ 
icism  ;  the  criticism  founded  on  patient  study  and  on 
strictly  philosophical  principles ;  the  criticism  on 
which  one  can  safely  rely  as  the  criterion  of  good 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  261 

taste,  and  which,  however  tame  it  may  appear  to 
the  jaded  appetite  of  the  literary  lounger,  is  the  only 
one  that  will  attract  the  eye  of  posterity. 

The  work  named  at  the  head  of  our  article  will, 
we  suspect,  notwithstanding  the  authors  brilliant 
reputation,  never  meet  this  same  eye  of  posterity. 
Though  purporting  to  be,  in  its  main  design,  an  Es¬ 
say  on  English  Literature,  it  is,  in  fact,  a  multifarious 
compound  of  as  many  ingredients  as  entered  into 
the  witches’  caldron,  to  say  nothing  of  a  gallery  of 
portraits  of  dead  and  living,  among  the  latter  of 
whom  M.  de  Chateaubriand  himself  is  not  the  least 
conspicuous.  “  I  have  treated  of  every  thing,”  he 
says,  truly  enough,  in  his  preface,  “  the  Present,  the 
Past,  the  Future.”  The  parts  are  put  together  in 
the  most  grotesque  and  disorderly  manner,  with 
some  striking  coincidences,  occasionally,  of  charac¬ 
ters  and  situations,  and  some  facts  not  familiar  to 
every  reader.  The  most  unpleasant  feature  in  the 
book  is  the  doleful  lamentation  of  the  author  over 
the  evil  times  on  which  he  has  fallen.  He  has,  in¬ 
deed,  lived  somewhat  beyond  his  time,  which  was 
that  of  Charles  the  Tenth,  of  pious  memory — the 
good  old  time  of  apostolicals  and  absolutists,  which 
will  not  be  likely  to  revisit  France  again  very  soon. 
Indeed,  our  unfortunate  author  reminds  one  of  some 
weather-beaten  hulk  which  the  tide  has  left  high 
and  dry  on  the  strand,  and  whose  signals  of  distress 
are  little  heeded  by  the  rest  of  the  convoy,  which 
have  trimmed  their  sails  more  dexterously,  and  sweep 
merrily  on  before  the  breeze.  The  present  wrork 


262  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

affords  glimpses,  occasionally,  of  the  author’s  hap¬ 
pier  style,  which  has  so  often  fascinated  us  in  his 
earlier  productions.  On  the  whole,  however,  it  will 
add  little  to  his  reputation,  nor,  probably,  much 
subtract  from  it.  When  a  man  has  sent  forth  a 
score  or  two  of  octavos  into  the  world,  and  as  good 
as  some  of  M.  de  Chateaubriand’s,  he  can  bear  up 
under  a  poor  one  now  and  then.  This  is  not  the 
first  indifferent  work  laid  at  his  door,  and,  as  he 
promises  to  keep  the  field  for  some  time  longer,  it 
will  probably  not  be  the  last. 

We  pass  over  the  first  half  of  the  first  volume  to 
come  to  the  Reformation,  the  point  of  departure,  as 
it  were,  for  modern  civilization.  Our  author’s  views 
in  relation  to  it,  as  we  might  anticipate,  are  not  pre¬ 
cisely  those  we  should  entertain. 

“  In  a  religious  point  of  view,”  he  says,  “  the  Ref¬ 
ormation  is  leading  insensibly  to  indifference,  or  the 
complete  absence  of  faith ;  the  reason  is,  that  the 
independence  of  the  mind  terminates  in  two  gulfs, 
doubt  and  incredulity. 

“  By  a  very  natural  reaction,  the  Reformation,  at 
its  birth,  rekindled  the  dying  flame  of  Catholic  fa¬ 
naticism.  It  may  thus  be  regarded  as  the  indirect 
cause  of  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  the  dis¬ 
turbances  of  the  League,  the  assassination  of  Henry 
the  Fourth,  the  murders  in  Ireland,  and  of  the  revo¬ 
cation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  and  the  dragonnodes  /” 
— Yol.  i.,  p.  193. 

As  to  the  tendency  of  the  Reformation  towards 
doubt  and  incredulity,  we  know  that  free  inquiry, 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  263 

continually  presenting  new  views  as  the  sphere  of 
observation  is  enlarged,  may  unsettle  old  principles 
without  establishing  any  fixed  ones  in  their  place, 
or,  in  other  words,  lead  to  skepticism ;  but  we  doubt 
if  this  happens  more  frequently  than  under  the  op¬ 
posite  system,  inculcated  by  the  Romish  Church, 
which,  by  precluding  examination,  excludes  the  only 
ground  of  rational  belief.  At  all  events,  skepticism, 
in  the  former  case,  is  much  more  remediable  than 
in  the  latter ;  since  the  subject  of  it,  by  pursuing  his 
inquiries,  will,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  as  truth  is  mighty, 
arrive  at  last  at  a  right  result ;  while  the  Romanist, 
inhibited  from  such  inquiry,  has  no  remedy.  The 
ingenious  author  of  “  Doblado’s  Letters  from  Spain” 
has  painted  in  the  most  affecting  colours  the  state 
of  such  a  mind,  which,  declining  to  take  its  creed  at 
the  bidding  of  another,  is  lost  in  a  labyrinth  of  doubt 
without  a  clew  to  guide  it.  As  to  charging  on  the 
Reformation  the  various  enormities  with  which  the 
above  extract  concludes,  the  idea  is  certainly  new. 
It  is,  in  fact,  making  the  Protestants  guilty  of  their 
own  persecution,  and  Henry  the  Fourth  of  his  own 
assassination  ;  quite  an  original  view  of  the  subject, 
which,  as  far  as  we  know,  has  hitherto  escaped  the 
attention  of  historians. 

A  few  pages  farther,  and  we  find  the  following 
information  respecting  the  state  of  Catholicism  in 
our  own  country : 

“Maryland,  a  Catholic  and  very  populous  state, 
made  common  cause  with  the  others,  and  now  most 
of  the  Western  States  are  Catholic.  The  progress 


264  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

of  this  communion  in  the  United  States  of  America 
exceeds  belief.  There  it  has  been  invigorated  in 
its  evangelical  aliment,  popular  liberty,  while  other 
communioris  decline  in  'profound  indifference!' — Vol. 
i.,  p.  201. 

We  were  not  aw^are  of  this  state  of  things.  We 
did  indeed  know  that  the  Roman  Church  had  in¬ 
creased  much  of  late  years,  especially  in  the  Valley 
of  the  Mississippi :  but  so  have  other  communions, 
as  the  Methodist  and  Baptist,  for  example,  the  latter 
of  which  comprehends  five  times  as  many  disciples 
as  the  Roman  Catholic.  As  to  the  population  of 
the  latter  in  the  West,  the  whole  number  of  Cath¬ 
olics  in  the  Union  does  not  amount,  probably,  to 
three  fourths  of  the  number  of  inhabitants  in  the 
single  western  State  of  Ohio.  The  truth  is,  that, 
in  a  country  where  there  is  no  established  or  fa- 
voured  sect,  and  where  the  clergy  depend  on  volun¬ 
tary  contribution  for  their  support,  there  must  be 
constant  efforts  at  proselytism,  and  a  mutation  of 
religious  opinion,  according  to  the  convictions,  or 
fancied  convictions  of  the  converts.  What  one  de¬ 
nomination  gains  another  loses,  till  roused,  in  its 
turn,  by  its  rival,  newr  efforts  are  made  to  retrieve  its 
position,  and  the  equilibrium  is  restored.  In  the 
mean  time,  the  population  of  the  whole  country 
goes  forward  with  giant  strides,  and  each  sect  boasts, 
and  boasts  with  truth,  of  the  hourly  augmentation  of 
its  numbers.  Those  of  the  Roman  Catholics  are 
swelled,  moreover,  by  a  considerable  addition  from 
emigration,  many  of  the  poor  foreigners,  especially 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  265 

the  Irish,  being  of  that  persuasion.  But  this  is  no 
ground  of  triumph,  as  it  infers  no  increase  to  the 
sum  of  Catholicism,  since  what  is  thus  gained  in 
the  New  World  is  lost  in  the  Old. 

Our  author  pronounces  the  Reformation  hostile 
to  the  arts,  poetry,  eloquence,  elegant  literature,  and 
even  the  spirit  of  military  heroism.  But  hear  his 
own  words : 

“  The  Reformation,  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  its 
founder,  declared  itself  hostile  to  the  arts.  It  sack¬ 
ed  tombs,  churches,  and  monuments,  and  made  in 
France  and  England  heaps  of  ruins.”.  .  .  . 

“  The  beautiful  in  literature  will  be  found  to 
exist  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  in  proportion  as 
writers  have  approximated  to  the  genius  of  the  Ro¬ 
man  Church.”  .... 

“  If  the  Reformation  restricted  genius  in  poetry, 
eloquence,  and  the  arts,  it  also  checked  heroism  in 
war,  for  heroism  is  imagination  in  the  military  or¬ 
der.” — Vol.  i.,  p.  194-207. 

This  is  a  sweeping  denunciation;  and,  as  far  as 
the  arts  of  design  are  intended,  may  probably  be 
defended.  The  Romish  worship,  its  stately  ritual 
and  gorgeous  ceremonies,  the  throng  of  numbers  as¬ 
sisting,  in  one  form  or  another,  at  the  service,  all 
required  spacious  and  magnificent  edifices,  with  the 
rich  accessories  of  sculpture  and  painting,  and  mu¬ 
sic  also,  to  give  full  effect  to  the  spectacle.  Never 
was  there  a  religion  which  addressed  itself  more 
directly  to  the  senses.  And,  fortunately  for  it,  the 
immense  power  and  revenues  of  its  ministers  enabled 

L  L 


266  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

them  to  meet  its  exorbitant  demands.  On  so  splen¬ 
did  a  theatre,  and  under  such  patronage,  the  arts 
were  called  into  life  in  modern  Europe,  and  most  of 
all  in  that  spot  which  represented  the  capital  of 
Christendom.  It  was  there,  amid  the  pomp  and 
luxury  of  religion,  that  those  beautiful  structures 
rose,  with  those  exquisite  creations  of  the  chisel  and 
the  pencil,  which  imbodied  in  themselves  all  the 
elements  of  ideal  beauty. 

But,  independently  of  these  external  circumstan¬ 
ces,  the  spirit  of  Catholicism  was  eminently  favour¬ 
able  to  the  artist.  Shut  out  from  free  inquiry — 
from  the  Scriptures  themselves — and  compelled  to 
receive  the  dogmas  of  his  teachers  upon  trust,  the 
road  to  conviction  lay  less  through  the  understand¬ 
ing  than  the  heart.  The  heart  was  to  be  moved, 
the  affections  and  sympathies  to  be  stirred,  as  well 
as  the  senses  to  be  dazzled.  This  was  the  machi¬ 
nery  by  which  alone  could  an  effectual  devotion  to 
the  faith  be  maintained  in  an  ignorant  people.  It 
was  not,  therefore,  Christ  as  a  teacher  delivering 
lessons  of  practical  wisdom  and  morality  that  was 
brought  before  the  eye,  but  Christ  filling  the  offices 
of  human  sympathy,  ministering  to  the  poor  and 
sorrowing,  giving  eyes  to  the  blind,  health  to  the 
sick,  and  life  to  the  dead.  It  was  Christ  suffering 
under  persecution,  crowned  with  thorns,  lacerated 
with  stripes,  dying  on  the  cross.  These  sorrows 
and  sufferings  were  understood  by  the  dullest  soul, 
and  told  more  than  a  thousand  homilies.  So  with 
the  Virgin.  It  was  not  that  sainted  mother  of  the 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  267 


Saviour  whom  Protestants  venerate,  but  do  not  wor¬ 
ship  ;  it  was  the  Mother  of  God,  and  entitled,  like 
him,  to  adoration.  It  was  a  woman,  and,  as  such, 
the  object  of  those  romantic  feelings  which  would 
profane  the  service  of  the  Deity,  but  which  are  not 
the  less  touching  as  being  in  accordance  with  hu¬ 
man  sympathies.  The  respect  for  the  Virgin,  indeed, 
partook  of  that  which  a  Catholic  might  feel  for  his 
tutelar  saint  and  his  mistress  combined.  Orders  of 
chivalry  were  dedicated  to  her  service  ;  and  her 
shrine  was  piled  with  more  offerings  and  frequented 
by  more  pilgrimages  than  the  altars  of  the  Deity 
himself.  Thus,  feelings  of  love,  adoration,  and  ro¬ 
mantic  honour,  strangely  blended,  threw  a  halo  of 
poetic  glory  around  their  object,  making  it  the  most 
exalted  theme  for  the  study  of  the  artist.  What 
wonder  that  this  subject  should  have  called  forth  the 
noblest  inspirations  of  his  genius  I  What  wonder 
that  an  artist  like  Raphael  should  have  found  in  the 
simple  portraiture  of  a  woman  and  a  child  the  ma¬ 
terials  for  immortality  ? 

It  was  something  like  a  kindred  state  of  feeling 
which  called  into  being  the  arts  of  ancient  Greece, 
when  her  mythology  was  comparatively  fresh,  and 
faith  was  easy ;  when  the  legends  of  the  past,  famil¬ 
iar  as  Scripture  story  at  a  later  day,  gave  a  real  ex¬ 
istence  to  the  beings  of  fancy,  and  the  artist,  im- 
bodying  these  in  forms  of  visible  beauty,  but  finished 
the  work  which  the  poet  had  begun. 

The  Reformation  brought  other  trains  of  ideas, 
and  with  them  other  influences  on  the  arts,  than  those 


268  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

of  Catholicism.  Its  first  movements  were  decidedly 
hostile,  since  the  works  of  art,  with  which  the  tem¬ 
ples  were  adorned,  being  associated  with  the  religion 
itself,  became  odious  as  the  symbols  of  idolatry.  But 
the  spirit  of  the  Reformation  gave  thought  a  new 
direction  even  in  the  cultivation  of  art.  It  was  no 
longer  sought  to  appeal  to  the  senses  by  brilliant  dis¬ 
play,  or  to  waken  the  sensibilities  by  those  superficial 
emotions  which  find  relief  in  tears.  A  sterner,  deep¬ 
er  feeling  was  roused.  The  mind  was  turned  within, 
as  it  were,  to  ponder  on  the  import  of  existence  and 
its  future  destinies;  for  the  chains  were  withdrawn 
from  the  soul,  and  it  was  permitted  to  wander  at 
large  in  the  regions  of  speculation.  Reason  took 
the  place  of  sentiment — the  useful  of  the  merely  or¬ 
namental.  Facts  were  substituted  for  forms,  even 
the  ideal  forms  of  beauty.  There  were  to  be  no 
more  Michael  Angelos  and  Raphaels  ;  no  glorious 
Gothic  temples  which  consumed  generations  in  their 
building.  The  sublime  and  the  beautiful  were  not 
the  first  objects  proposed  by  the  artist.  He  sought 
truth — fidelity  to  nature.  Pie  studied  the  characters 
of  his  species  as  well  as  the  forms  of  imaginary  per¬ 
fection.  He  portrayed  life  as  developed  in  its  thou¬ 
sand  peculiarities  before  his  own  eyes,  and  the  ideal 
gave  way  to  the  natural.  In  this  way,  new  schools 
of  painting,  like  that  of  Hogarth,  for  example,  arose, 
which,  however  inferior  in  those  great  properties  for 
which  we  must  admire  the  masterpieces  of  Italian 
art,  had  a  significance  and  philosophic  depth  which 
furnished  quite  as  much  matter  for  study  and  medi¬ 
tation. 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  269 


A  similar  tendency  was  observable  in  poetry,  el¬ 
oquence,  and  works  of  elegant  literature.  The  in¬ 
fluence  of  the  Reformation  here  was  undoubtedly 
favourable,  whatever  it  may  have  been  on  the  arts. 
How  could  it  be  otherwise  on  literature,  the  written 
expression  of  thought,  in  which  no  grace  of  visible 
forms  and  proportions,  no  skill  of  mechanical  execu¬ 
tion,  can  cheat  the  eye  with  the  vain  semblance  of 
genius  1  But  it  was  not  until  the  warm  breath  of 
the  Reformation  had  dissolved  the  icy  fetters  which 
had  so  long  held  the  spirit  of  man  in  bondage  that 
the  genial  current  of  the  soul  was  permitted  to  flow, 
that  the  gates  of  reason  were  unbarred,  and  the  mind 
was  permitted  to  taste  of  the  tree  of  knowledge,  for¬ 
bidden  tree  no  longer.  Where  was  the  scope  for 
eloquence  when  thought  was  stifled  in  the  very  sanc¬ 
tuary  of  the  heart?  for  out  of  the  fulness  of  the  heart 
the  mouth  speaketh. 

There  might,  indeed,  be  an  elaborate  attention  to 
the  outward  forms  of  expression,  an  exquisite  finish 
of  verbal  arrangement,  the  dress  and  garniture  of 
thought.  And,  in  fact,  the  Catholic  nations  have 
surpassed  the  Protestant  in  attention  to  verbal  ele¬ 
gance  and  the  soft  music  of  numbers,  to  nice  rhe¬ 
torical  artifice  and  brilliancy  of  composition.  The 
poetry  of  Italy  and  the  prose  of  France  bear  ample  ev¬ 
idence  how  much  time  and  talent  have  been  expend¬ 
ed  on  this  beauty  of  outward  form,  the  rich  vehicle 
of  thought.  But  where  shall  we  find  the  powerful 
reasoning,  various  knowledge,  and  fearless  energy  of 
diction  which  stamp  the  oratory  of  Protestant  Eng- 


270  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

land  and  America  ?  In  France,  indeed,  where  prose 
has  received  a  higher  polish  and  classic  elegance 
than  in  any  other  country,  pulpit  eloquence  has  reach¬ 
ed  an  uncommon  degree  of  excellence ;  for  though 
much  was  excluded,  the  avenues  to  the  heart,  as  with 
the  painter  and  the  sculptor,  were  still  left  open  to 
the  orator.  If  there  has  been  a  deficiency  in  this 
respect  in  the  English  Church,  which  all  will  not  ad¬ 
mit,  it  arises  probably  from  the  fact  that  the  mind, 
unrestricted,  has  been  occupied  with  reasoning  rath¬ 
er  than  rhetoric,  and  sought  to  clear  away  old  prej¬ 
udices  and  establish  new  truths,  instead  of  wakening 
a  transient  sensibility,  or  dazzling  the  imagination 
with  poetic  flights  of  eloquence.  That  it  is  the  fault 
of  the  preacher,  at  all  events,  and  not  of  Protestant¬ 
ism,  is  shown  by  a  striking  example  under  our  own 
eyes,  that  of  our  distinguished  countryman,  Dr.  Clian- 
ning,  whose  style  is  irradiated  with  all  the  splendours 
of  a  glowing  imagination,  showing,  as  powerfully  as 
any  other  example,  probably,  in  English  prose,  of 
what  melody  and  compass  the  language  is  capable 
under  the  touch  of  genius  instinct  with  genuine  en¬ 
thusiasm.  Not  that  we  would  recommend  this  style, 
grand  and  beautiful  as  it  is,  for  imitation.  We  think 
we  have  seen  the  ill  effects  of  this  already  in  more 
than  one  instance.  In  fact,  no  style  should  be  held 
up  as  a  model  for  imitation.  Dr.  Johnson  tells  us, 
in  one  of  those  oracular  passages  somewhat  thread¬ 
bare  now,  that  “whoever  wishes  to  attain  an  English 
style,  familiar  but  not  coarse,  and  elegant  but  not  os¬ 
tentatious,  must  give  his  days  and  nights  to  the  vol- 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  271 


umes  of  Addison.”  With  all  deference  to  the  great 
critic,  who,  by  the  formal  cut  of  the  sentence  just 
quoted,  shows  that  he  did  not  care  to  follow  his  own 
prescription,  we  think  otherwise.  Whoever  would 
write  a  good  English  style,  we  should  say,  should  ac¬ 
quaint  himself  with  the  mysteries  of  the  language  as 
revealed  in  the  writings  of  the  best  masters,  but  should 
form  his  own  style  on  nobody  but  himself.  Every 
man,  at  least  every  man  with  a  spark  of  originality 
in  his  composition,  has  his  own  peculiar  way  of  think¬ 
ing,  and,  to  give  it  effect,  it  must  find  its  way  out  in 
its  own  peculiar  language.  Indeed,  it  is  impossible 
to  separate  language  from  thought  in  that  delicate 
blending  of  both  which  is  called  style ;  at  least,  it  is 
impossible  to  produce  the  same  effect  with  the  ori¬ 
ginal  by  any  copy,  however  literal.  We  may  imi¬ 
tate  the  structure  of  a  sentence,  but  the  ideas  which 
gave  it  its  peculiar  propriety  we  cannot  imitate.  The 
forms  of  expression  that  suit  one  man’s  train  of  think¬ 
ing  no  more  suit  another’s  than  one  man’s  clothes 
will  suit  another.  They  will  be  sure  to  be  either  too 
large  or  too  small,  or,  at  all  events,  not  to  make  what 
gentlemen  of  the  needle  call  a  good  jit.  If  the  party 
chances,  as  is  generally  the  case,  to  be  rather  under 
size,  and  the  model  is  over  size,  this  will  only  expose 
his  own  littleness  the  more.  There  is  no  case  more 
in  point  than  that  afforded  by  Dr.  Johnson  himself. 
His  brilliant  style  has  been  the  ambition  of  every 
schoolboy,  and  of  some  children  of  larger  growth, 
since  the  days  of  the  Rambler.  But  the  nearer  they 
come  to  it  the  worse.  The  beautiful  is  turned  into 


272  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

the  fantastic,  and  the  sublime  into  the  ridiculous. 
The  most  curious  example  of  this  within  our  recol¬ 
lection  is  the  case  of  Dr.  Symmons,  the  English 
editor  of  Milton’s  prose  writings,  and  the  biographer 
of  the  poet.  The  little  doctor  has  maintained 
throughout  his  ponderous  volume  a  most  exact  imi¬ 
tation  of  the  great  doctor,  his  sesquipedalian  words, 
and  florid  rotundity  of  period.  With  all  this  cum¬ 
brous  load  of  brave  finery  on  his  back,  swelled  to 
twice  his  original  dimensions,  he  looks,  for  all  the 
world,  as  he  is,  like  a  mere  bag  of  wind — a  scare¬ 
crow,  to  admonish  others  of  the  folly  of  similar  dep¬ 
redations. 

But  to  return.  The  influence  of  the  Reformation 
on  elegant  literature  was  never  more  visible  than  in 
the  first  great  English  school  of  poets,  which  came 
soon  after  it,  at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
The  writers  of  that  period  displayed  a  courage,  ori¬ 
ginality,  and  truth  highly  characteristic  of  the  new 
revolution,  which  had  been  introduced  by  breaking 
down  the  old  landmarks  of  opinion,  and  giving  un¬ 
bounded  range  to  speculation  and  inquiry.  The 
first  great  poet,  Spenser,  adopted  the  same  vehicle 
of  imagination  with  the  Italian  bards  of  chivalry,  the 
romantic  epic ;  but  instead  of  making  it,  like  them, 
a  mere  revel  of  fancy,  with  no  farther  object  than  to 
delight  the  reader  by  brilliant  combinations,  he  mor¬ 
alized  his  song,  and  gave  it  a  deeper  and  more  sol¬ 
emn  import  by  the  mysteries  of  Allegory,  which, 
however  prejudicial  to  its  effect  as  a  work  of  art, 
showed  a  mind  too  intent  on  serious  thoughts  and 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  273 


inquiries  itself  to  be  content  with  the  dazzling  but 
impotent  coruscations  of  genius,  that  serve  no  other 
end  than  that  of  amusement. 

In  the  same  manner,  Shakspeare  and  the  other 
dramatic  writers  of  the  time,  instead  of  adopting  the 
formal  rules  recognised  afterward  by  the  French 
writers,  their  long  rhetorical  flourishes,  their  exag¬ 
gerated  models  of  character,  and  ideal  forms,  went 
freely  and  fearlessly  into  all  the  varieties  of  human 
nature,  the  secret  depths  of  the  soul,  touching  on  all 
the  diversified  interests  of  humanity — for  he  might 
touch  on  all  without  fear  of  persecution — and  thus 
making  his  productions  a  storehouse  of  philosophy, 
of  lessons  of  practical  wisdom,  deep,  yet  so  clear 
that  he  who  runs  may  read. 

But  the  spirit  of  the  Reformation  did  not  descend 
in  all  its  fulness  on  the  Muse  till  the  appearance  of 
Milton.  That  great  poet  was  in  heart  as  thoroughly 
a  Reformer,  and  in  doctrine  much  more  thoroughly 
so  than  Luther  himself.  Indignant  at  every  effort 
to  crush  the  spirit,  and  to  cheat  it,  in  his  own  words, 
“  of  that  liberty  which  rarefies  and  enlightens  it  like 
the  influence  of  heaven,”  he  proclaimed  the  rights 
of  man  as  a  rational,  immortal  being,  undismayed  by 
menace  and  obloquy,  amid  a  generation  of  servile 
and  unprincipled  sycophants.  The  blindness  which 
excluded  him  from  the  things  of  earth  opened  to 
him  more  glorious  and  spiritualized  conceptions  of 
heaven,  and  aided  him  in  exhibiting  the  full  influ¬ 
ence  of  those  sublime  truths  which  the  privilege  of 
free  inquiry  in  religious  matters  had  poured  upon  the 

M  M 


274  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

mind.  His  Muse  was  as  eminently  the  child  of 
Protestantism  as  that  of  Dante,  who  resembled  him 
in  so  many  traits  of  character,  was  of  Catholicism. 
The  latter  poet,  coming  first  among  the  moderns, 
after  the  fountains  of  the  great  deep,  which  had  so 
long  overwhelmed  the  world,  were  broken  up,  dis¬ 
played,  in  his  wonderful  composition,  all  the  ele¬ 
ments  of  modern  institutions  as  distinguished  from 
those  of  antiquity.  He  first  showed  the  full  and 
peculiar  influence  of  Christianity  on  literature,  but 
it  was  Christianity  under  the  form  of  Catholicism. 
His  subject,  spiritual  in  its  design,  like  Milton’s,  was 
sustained  by  all  the  auxiliaries  of  a  visible  and  ma¬ 
terial  existence.  His  passage  through  the  infernal 
abyss  is  a  series  of  tragic  pictures  of  human  wo,  sug¬ 
gesting  greater  refinements  of  cruelty  than  were  ever 
imagined  by  a  heathen  poet.  Amid  all  the  various 
forms  of  mortal  anguish,  we  look  in  vain  for  the 
mind  as  a  means  of  torture.  In  like  manner,  in  as¬ 
cending  the  scale  of  celestial  being,  we  pass  through 
a  succession  of  brilliant  fetes,  made  up  of  light,  mu¬ 
sic,  and  motion,  increasing  in  splendour  and  velocity, 
till  all  are  lost  and  confounded  in  the  glories  of  the 
Deity.  Even  the  pencil  of  the  great  master,  dipped 
in  these  gorgeous  tints  of  imagination,  does  not 
shrink  from  the  attempt  to  portray  the  outlines  of 
Deity  itself.  In  this  he  aspired  to  what  many  of  his 
countrymen  in  the  sister  arts  of  design  have  since 
attempted,  and,  like  him,  have  failed ;  for  who  can 
hope  to  give  form  to  the  Infinite  1  In  the  same 
false  style  Dante  personifies  the  spirits  of  evil,  inclu- 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  275 

ding  Satan  himself.  Much  was  doubtless  owing  to 
the  age,  though  much,  also,  must  be  referred  to  the 
genius  of  Catholicism,  which,  appealing  to  the  senses, 
has  a  tendency  to  materialize  the  spiritual,  as  Pro¬ 
testantism,  with  deeper  reflection,  aims  to  spiritual¬ 
ize  the  material.  Thus  Milton,  in  treading  similar 
ground,  borrows  his  illustrations  from  intellectual 
sources,  conveys  the  image  of  the  Almighty  by  his 
attributes,  and,  in  the  frequent  portraiture  which  he 
introduces  of  Satan,  suggests  only  vague  conceptions 
of  form,  the  faint  outlines  of  matter,  as  it  were, 
stretching  vast  over  many  a  rood,  but  towering  sub¬ 
lime  by  the  unconquerable  energy  of  will — the  fit 
representative  of  the  principle  of  evil.  Indeed,  Mil- 
ton  has  scarcely  anything  of  what  may  be  called 
scenic  decorations  to  produce  a  certain  stage  effect. 
His  actors  are  few,  and  his  action  nothing.  It  is 
only  by  their  intellectual  and  moral  relations — by 
giving  full  scope  to  the 

“  Cherub  Contemplation — 

He  that  soars  on  golden  wing, 

Guiding  the  fiery-wheeled  throne” 

that  he  has  prepared  for  us  visions  of  celestial  beauty 
and  grandeur  which  never  fade  from  our  souls. 

In  the  dialogue  with  which  the  two  poets  have 
seasoned  their  poems,  we  see  the  action  of  the  oppo¬ 
site  influences  we  have  described.  Both  give  vent 
to  metaphysical  disquisition,  of  learned  sound,  and 
much  greater  length  than  the  reader  would  desire ; 
but  in  Milton  it  is  the  free  discussion  of  a  mind 
trained  to  wrestle  boldly  on  abstrusest  points  of  met- 


276  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES 

aphysical  theology,  while  Dante  follows  in  the  same 
old  barren  footsteps  which  had  been  trodden  by  the 
schoolmen.  Both  writers  were  singularly  bold  and 
independent.  Dante  asserted  that  liberty  which 
should  belong  to  the  citizen  of  every  free  state  ;  that 
civil  liberty  which  had  been  sacrificed  in  his  own 
country  by  the  spirit  of  faction.  But  Milton  claim¬ 
ed  a  higher  freedom ;  a  freedom  of  thinking  and  of 
giving  utterance  to  thought,  uncontrolled  by  human 
authority.  He  had  fallen  on  evil  times ;  but  he  had 
a  generous  confidence  that  his  voice  would  reach  to 
posterity,  and  would  be  a  guide  and  a  light  to  the 
coming  generations.  And  truly  has  it  proved  so  ; 
for  in  his  writings  we  find  the  germs  of  many  of  the 
boasted  discoveries  of  our  own  day  in  government 
and  education,  so  that  he  may  be  fairly  considered 
as  the  morning  star  of  that  higher  civilization  which 
distinguishes  our  happier  era. 

Milton’s  poetical  writings  do  not  seem,  however, 
to  have  been  held  in  that  neglect  by  his  contempo¬ 
raries  which  is  commonly  supposed.  He  had  at¬ 
tracted  too  much  attention  as  a  political  controver¬ 
sialist,  was  too  much  feared  for  his  talents,  as  well 
as  hated  for  his  principles,  to  allow  anything  which 
fell  from  his  pen  to  pass  unnoticed.  Although  the 
profits  went  to  others,  he  lived  to  see  a  second  edi¬ 
tion  of  “  Paradise  Lost,”  and  this  was  more  than 
was  to  have  been  fairly  anticipated  of  a  composition 
of  this  nature,  however  well  executed,  falling  on 
such  times.  Indeed,  its  sale  was  no  evidence  that 
its  merits  were  comprehended,  and  may  be  referred 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  277 

to  the  general  reputation  of  its  author ;  for  we  find 
so  accomplished  a  critic  as  Sir  William  Temple, 
some  years  later,  omitting  the  name  of  Milton  in  his 
roll  of  writers  who  have  done  honour  to  modern  lit¬ 
erature,  a  circumstance  which  may,  perhaps,  be  im¬ 
puted  to  that  reverence  for  the  ancients  which  blind¬ 
ed  Sir  William  to  the  merits  of  their  successors. 
How  could  Milton  be  understood  in  his  own  gener¬ 
ation,  in  the  grovelling,  sensual  court  of  Charles  the 
Second  I  How  could  the  dull  eyes,  so  long  fastened 
on  the  earth,  endure  the  blaze  of  his  inspired  genius  ? 
It  was  not  till  time  had  removed  him  to  a  distance 
that  he  could  be  calmly  gazed  on  and  his  merits 
fairly  contemplated.  Addison,  as  is  well  known,  was 
the  first  to  bring  them  into  popular  view,  by  a  beau¬ 
tiful  specimen  of  criticism  that  has  permanently  con¬ 
nected  his  name  with  that  of  his  illustrious  subject. 
More  than  half  a  century  later,  another  great  name 
in  English  criticism,  perhaps  the  greatest  in  general 
reputation,  Johnson,  passed  sentence  of  a  very  differ¬ 
ent  kind  on  the  pretensions  of  the  poet.  A  produc¬ 
tion  more  discreditable  to  the  author  is  not  to  be 
found  in  the  whole  of  his  voluminous  works  ;  equally 
discreditable,  whether  regarded  in  an  historical  light 
or  as  a  sample  of  literary  criticism.  What  shall  we 
say  of  the  biographer  who,  in  allusion  to  that  affect¬ 
ing  passage  where  the  blind  old  bard  talks  of  himself 
as  “  in  darkness,  and  with  dangers  compass’d  round,” 
can  coolly  remark  that  “  this  darkness,  had  his  eyes 
been  better  employed,  might  undoubtedly  have  de¬ 
served  compassion  ]”  Or  what  of  the  critic  who 


278  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

can  say  of  the  most  exquisite  effusion  of  Doric  min¬ 
strelsy  that  our  language  boasts,  “  Surely  no  man 
could  have  fancied  that  he  read  ‘  Lycidas’  with 
pleasure,  had  he  not  known  the  author  and  of 
“  Paradise  Lost”  itself,  that  “  its  perusal  is  a  duty 
rather  than  a  pleasure  1 ”  Could  a  more  exact  meas¬ 
ure  be  afforded  than  by  this  single  line  of  the  poetic 
sensibility  of  the  critic,  and  his  unsuitableness  for  the 
office  he  had  here  assumed  ?  His  “  Life  of  Milton” 
is  a  humiliating  testimony  of  the  power  of  political 
and  religious  prejudices  to  warp  a  great  and  good 
mind  from  the  standard  of  truth,  in  the  estimation, 
not  merely  of  contemporary  excellence,  but  of  the 
great  of  other  years,  over  whose  frailties  Time  might 
be  supposed  to  have  drawn  his  friendly  mantle. 

Another  half  century  has  elapsed,  and  ample  jus¬ 
tice  has  been  rendered  to  the  fame  of  the  poet  by 
two  elaborate  criticisms :  the  one  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review,  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Macaulay  ;  the  other  by 
Dr.  Channing,  in  the  “  Christian  Examiner,”  since 
republished  in  his  own  works  ;  remarkable  perform¬ 
ances,  each  in  the  manner  highly  characteristic  of 
its  author,  and  which  have  contributed,  doubtless,  to 
draw  attention  to  the  prose  compositions  of  their 
subject,  as  the  criticism  of  Addison  did  to  his  poetry. 
There  is  something  gratifying  in  the  circumstance 
that  this  great  advocate  of  intellectual  liberty  should 
have  found  his  most  able  and  eloquent  expositor 
among  us,  whose  position  qualifies  us,  in  a  peculiar 
manner,  for  profiting  by  the  rich  legacy  of  his  genius. 
It  was  but  discharging  a  debt  of  gratitude. 


chateaubrtand’s  English  literature.  279 

Chateaubriand  lias  much  to  say  about  Milton,  for 
whose  writings,  both  prose  and  poetry,  notwithstand¬ 
ing  the  difference  of  their  sentiments  on  almost  all 
points  of  politics  and  religion,  he  appears  to  enter¬ 
tain  the  most  sincere  reverence.  His  criticisms  are 
liberal  and  just;  they  show  a  thorough  study  of  his 
author;  but  neither  the  historical  facts  nor  the  re¬ 
flections  will  suggest  much  that  is  new  on  a  subject 
now  become  trite  to  the  English  reader. 

We  may  pass  over  a  good  deal  of  skimble-skam¬ 
ble  stuff  about  men  and  things,  which  our  author 
may  have  cut  out  of  his  commonplace-book,  to  come 
to  his  remarks  on  Sir  Walter  Scott,  whom  he  does 
not  rate  so  highly  as  most  critics. 

“  The  illustrious  painter  of  Scotland,”  he  says, 
“  seems  to  me  to  have  created  a  false  class ;  he  has, 
in  my  opinion,  confounded  history  and  romance. 
The  novelist  has  set  about  writing  historical  roman¬ 
ces,  and  the  historian  romantic  histories.” — Yol.  ii., 
p.  306. 

We  should  have  said,  on  the  contrary,  that  he 
had  improved  the  character  of  both ;  that  he  had 
given  new  value  to  romance  by  building  it  on  his¬ 
tory,  and  new  charms  to  history  by  embellishing  it 
with  the  graces  of  romance. 

To  be  more  explicit.  The  principal  historical 
work  of  Scott  is  the  “Life  of  Napoleon.”  It  has, 
unquestionably,  many  of  the  faults  incident  to  a 
dashing  style  of  composition,  which  precluded  the 
possibility  of  compression  and  arrangement  in  the 
best  form  of  which  the  subject  was  capable.  This, 


280  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

in  the  end,  may  be  fatal  to  the  perpetuity  of  the 
work,  for  posterity  will  be  much  less  patient  than 
our  own  age.  He  will  have  a  much  heavier  load  to 
carry,  inasmuch  as  he  is  to  bear  up  under  all  of  his 
own  time,  and  ours  too.  It  is  very  certain,  then, 
some  must  go  by  the  board  ;  and  nine  sturdy  vol¬ 
umes,  which  is  the  amount  of  Sir  Walter’s  English 
edition,  will  be  somewhat  alarming.  Had  he  con¬ 
fined  himself  to  half  the  quantity,  there  would  have 
been  no  ground  for  distrust.  Every  day,  nay,  hour, 
we  see,  ay,  and  feel,  the  ill  effects  of  this  rapid  style 
of  composition,  so  usual  with  the  best  writers  of  our 
day.  The  immediate  profits  which  such  writers  are 
pretty  sure  to  get,  notwithstanding  the  example  of 
M.  Chateaubriand,  operate  like  the  dressing  improv- 
idently  laid  on  a  naturally  good  soil,  forcing  out 
noxious  weeds  in  such  luxuriance  as  to  check,  if  not 
absolutely  to  kill,  the  more  healthful  vegetation. 
Quantities  of  trivial  detail  find  their  way  into  the 
page,  mixed  up  with  graver  matters.  Instead  of 
that  skilful  preparation  by  which  all  the  avenues 
verge  at  last  to  one  point,  so  as  to  leave  a  distinct 
impression — an  impression  of  unity — on  the  reader, 
he  is  hurried  along  zigzag,  in  a  thousand  directions, 
or  round  and  round,  but  never,  in  the  cant  of  the 
times,  “going  ahead”  an  inch.  He  leaves  off  pretty 
much  where  he  set  out,  except  that  his  memory  may 
be  tolerably  well  stuffed  with  facts,  which,  from  want 
of  some  principle  of  cohesion,  will  soon  drop  out  of 
it.  He  will  find  himself  like  a  traveller  who  has 
been  riding  through  a  fine  country,  it  may  be,  by 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  281 


moonlight,  getting  glimpses  of  everything,  but  no  com¬ 
plete,  well-illuminated  view  of  the  whole  (“  quale  per 
incertam  lunam ,”  &c.)  ;  or,  rather,  like  the  same  trav¬ 
eller,  whizzing  along  in  a  locomotive  so  rapidly  as 
to  get  even  a  glimpse  fairly  of  nothing,  instead  of 
making  his  tour  in  such  a  manner  as  would  enable 
him  to  pause  at  what  was  worth  his  attention,  to 
pass  by  night  over  the  barren  and  uninteresting,  and 
occasionally  to  rise  to  such  elevations  as  would  af¬ 
ford  the  best  points  of  view  for  commanding  the  va¬ 
rious  prospect. 

The  romance  writer  labours  under  no  such  em¬ 
barrassments.  He  may,  undoubtedly,  precipitate  his 
work,  so  that  it  may  lack  proportion,  and  the  nice 
arrangement  required  by  the  rules  which,  fifty  years 
ago,  would  have  condemned  it  as  a  work  of  art. 
But  the  criticism  of  the  present  day  is  not  so  squeam¬ 
ish,  or,  to  say  truth,  pedantic.  It  is  enough  for  the 
writer  of  fiction  if  he  give  pleasure ;  and  this,  eve¬ 
rybody  knows,  is  not  effected  by  the  strict  observ- 
ance  of  artificial  rules.  It  is  of  little  consequence 
how  the  plot  is  entangled,  or  whether  it  be  untied 
or  cut,  in  order  to  extricate  the  dramatis  personce. 
At  least,  it  is  of  little  consequence  compared  with 
the  true  delineation  of  character.  The  story  is  ser¬ 
viceable  only  as  it  affords  a  means  for  the  display  of 
this ;  and  if  the  novelist  but  keep  up  the  interest  of 
his  story  and  the  truth  of  his  characters,  we  easily 
forgive  any  dislocations  which  his  light  vehicle  may 
encounter  from  too  heedless  motion.  Indeed,  rapid¬ 
ity  of  motion  may  in  some  sort  favour  him,  keeping 

N  N 


282  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

up  the  glow  of  his  invention,  and  striking  out,  as  he 
dashes  along,  sparks  of  wit  and  fancy,  that  give  a 
brilliant  illumination  to  his  track.  But  in  history 
there  must  be  another  kind  of  process — a  process  at 
once  slow  and  laborious.  Old  parchments  are  to  be 
ransacked,  charters  and  musty  records  to  be  deci¬ 
phered,  and  stupid,  worm-eaten  chroniclers,  who 
had  much  more  of  passion,  frequently,  to  blind,  than 
good  sense  to  guide  them,  must  be  sifted  and  com¬ 
pared.  In  short,  a  sort  of  Medea-like  process  is  to 
be  gone  through,  and  many  an  old  bone  is  to  be 
boiled  over  in  the  caldron  before  it  can  come  out 
again  clothed  in  the  elements  of  beauty.  The 
dreams  of  the  novelist — the  poet  of  prose — on  the 
other  hand,  are  beyond  the  reach  of  art,  and  the 
magician  calls  up  the  most  brilliant  forms  of  fancy 
by  a  single  stroke  of  his  wand. 

Scott,  in  his  History,  was  relieved,  in  some  de¬ 
gree,  from  this  necessity  of  studious  research,  by  bor¬ 
rowing  his  theme  from  contemporary  events.  It 
was  his  duty,  indeed,  to  examine  evidence  carefully, 
and  sift  out  contradictions  and  errors.  This  de¬ 
manded  shrewdness  and  caution,  but  not  much  pre¬ 
vious  preparation  and  study.  It  demanded,  above 
all,  candour ;  for  it  was  his  business,  not  to  make  out 
a  case  for  a  client,  but  to  weigh  both  sides,  like  an 
impartial  judge,  before  summing  up  the  evidence,  and 
delivering  his  conscientious  opinion.  We  believe 
there  is  no  good  ground  for  charging  Scott  with  hav¬ 
ing  swerved  from  this  part  of  his  duty.  Those  who 
expected  to  see  him  deify  his  hero,  and  raise  altars  to 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  283 

his  memory,  were  disappointed ;  and  so  were  those, 
also,  who  demanded  that  the  tail  and  cloven  hoof 
should  be  made  to  peep  out  beneath  the  imperial 
robe.  But  this  proves  his  impartiality.  It  would 
be  unfair,  however,  to  require  the  degree  of  impar¬ 
tiality  which  is  to  be  expected  from  one  removed  to 
a  distance  from  the  theatre  of  strife,  from  those  na¬ 
tional  interests  and  feelings  which  are  so  often  the 
disturbing  causes  of  historic  fairness.  An  Ameri¬ 
can,  no  doubt,  would  have  been,  in  this  respect,  in  a 
more  favourable  point  of  view  for  contemplating  the 
European  drama.  The  ocean,  stretched  between 
us  and  the  Old  World,  has  the  effect  of  time,  and 
extinguishes,  or,  at  least,  cools  the  hot  and  angry 
feelings,  which  find  their  way  into  every  man’s  bo¬ 
som  within  the  atmosphere  of  the  contest.  Scott 
was  a  Briton,  with  all  the  peculiarities  of  one — at 
least  of  a  North  Briton ;  and  the  future  historian, 
who  gathers  materials  from  his  labours,  will  throw 
these  national  predilections  into  the  scale  in  deter¬ 
mining  the  probable  accuracy  of  his  statements. 
These  are  not  greater  than  might  occur  to  any 
man,  and  allowance  will  always  be  made  for  them, 
on  the  ground  of  a  general  presumption ;  so  that  a 
greater  degree  of  impartiality,  by  leading  to  false 
conclusions  in  this  respect,  would  scarcely  have  serv¬ 
ed  the  cause  of  truth  better  with  posterity.  An  in¬ 
dividual  who  felt  his  reputation  compromised  may 
have  joined  issue  on  this  or  that  charge  of  inaccu¬ 
racy,  but  no  such  charge  has  come  from  any  of 
the  leading  journals  in  the  country,  which  would  not 


284  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

have  been  slow  to  expose  it,  and  which  would  not, 
considering  the  great  popularity,  and,  consequently, 
influence  of  the  work,  have  omitted,  as  they  did,  to 
notice  it  at  all,  had  it  afforded  any  obvious  ground 
of  exception  on  this  score.  Where,  then,  is  the 
romance  which  our  author  accuses  Sir  Walter  of 
blending  with  history? 

Scott  was,  in  truth,  master  of  the  picturesque. 
He  understood,  better  than  any  historian  since  the 
time  of  Livy,  how  to  dispose  his  lights  and  shades 
so  as  to  produce  the  most  striking  result.  This  prop¬ 
erty  of  romance  he  had  a  right  to  borrow*.  This 
talent  is  particularly  observable  in  the  animated  parts 
of  his  story — in  his  battles,  for  example.  No  man 
ever  painted  those  terrible  scenes  with  greater  effect. 
He  had  a  natural  relish  for  gunpowder ;  and  his 
mettle  roused,  like  that  of  the  war-horse,  at  the  sound 
of  the  trumpet.  His  acquaintance  with  military  sci¬ 
ence  enabled  him  to  employ  a  technical  phraseolo¬ 
gy,  just  technical  enough  to  give  a  knowing  air  to 
his  descriptions,  without  embarrassing  the  reader  by 
a  pedantic  display  of  unintelligible  jargon.  This  is 
a  talent  rare  in  a  civilian.  Nothing  can  be  finer 
than  many  of  his  battle-pieces  in  his  “  Life  of  Bona¬ 
parte,”  unless,  indeed,  we  except  one  or  tw7o  in  his 
“  History  of  Scotland  as  the  fight  of  Bannockburn, 
for  example,  in  which  Burns’s  “  Scots,  wdia  hae” 
seems  to  breathe  in  every  line. 

It  is  when  treading  on  Scottish  ground  that  he 
seems  to  feel  all  his  strength.  “  I  seem  always  to 
step  more  firmly,”  he  said  to  some  one,  “  when  on 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  285 


my  own  native  heather.”  His  mind  was  steeped  in 
Scottish  lore,  and  his  bosom  warmed  with  a  sympa¬ 
thetic  glow  for  the  age  of  chivalry.  Accordingly, 
his  delineations  of  this  period,  whether  in  history  or 
romance,  are  unrivalled ;  as  superior  in  effect  to  those 
of  most  compilers,  as  the  richly-stained  glass  of  the 
feudal  ages  is  superior  in  beauty  and  brilliancy  of 
tints  to  a  modern  imitation.  If  this  be  borrowing 
something  from  romance,  it  is,  we  repeat,  no  more 
than  what  is  lawful  for  the  historian,  and  explains 
the  meaning  of  our  assertion  that  he  has  improved 
history  by  the  embellishments  of  fiction. 

Yet,  after  all,  how  wide  the  difference  between  the 
province  of  history  and  of  romance,  under  Scott’s 
own  hands,  may  be  shown  by  comparing  his  account 
of  Mary’s  reign  in  his  “History  of  Scotland,”  with 
the  same  period  in  the  novel  of  “The  Abbot.”  The 
historian  must  keep  the  beaten  track  of  events.  The 
novelist  launches  into  the  illimitable  regions  of  fic¬ 
tion,  provided  only  that  his  historic  portraits  be  true 
to  their  originals.  By  due  attention  to  this,  fiction  is 
made  to  minister  to  history,  and  may,  in  point  of 
fact,  contain  as  much  real  truth — truth  of  character, 
though  not  of  situation.  “  The  difference  between 
the  historian  and  me,”  says  Fielding,  “  is,  that  with 
him  everything  is  false  but  the  names  and  dates, 
while  with  me  nothing  is  false  but  these.”  There 
is,  at  least,  as  much  truth  in  this  as  in  most  witti¬ 
cisms. 

It  is  the  great  glory  of  Scott,  that,  by  nice  atten¬ 
tion  to  costume  and  character  in  his  novels,  he  has 


286  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

raised  them  to  historic  importance,  without  impair¬ 
ing  their  interest  as  works  of  art.  Who  now  would 
imagine  that  he  could  form  a  satisfactory  notion  of 
the  golden  days  of  Queen  Bess,  that  had  not  read 
“  Kenilworth  V’  or  of  Richard  Coeur-de-Lion  and 
his  brave  paladins,  that  had  not  read  “  Ivanhoe  V’ 
Why,  then,  it  has  been  said,  not  at  once  incorporate 
into  regular  history  all  these  traits  which  give  such 
historical  value  to  the  novel  1  Because,  in  this  way, 
the  strict  truth  which  history  requires  would  be  vi¬ 
olated.  This  cannot  be.  The  fact  is,  History  and 
Romance  are  too  near  akin  ever  to  be  lawfully  uni¬ 
ted.  By  mingling  them  together,  a  confusion  is  pro¬ 
duced,  like  the  mingling  of  day  and  night,  mystifying 
and  distorting  every  feature  of  the  landscape.  It  is 
enough  for  the  novelist  if  he  be  true  to  the  spirit ; 
the  historian  must  be  true,  also,  to  the  letter.  He 
cannot  coin  pertinent  remarks  and  anecdotes  to  il¬ 
lustrate  the  characters  of  his  drama.  He  cannot 
even  provide  them  with  suitable  costumes.  He 
must  take  just  what  Father  Time  has  given  him, 
just  what  he  finds  in  the  records  of  the  age,  setting 
down  neither  more  nor  less.  Now  the  dull  chroni¬ 
clers  of  the  old  time  rarely  thought  of  putting  down 
the  smart  sayings  of  the  great  people  they  biogra¬ 
phize,  still  less  of  entering  into  minute  circumstan¬ 
ces  of  personal  interest.  These  were  too  familiar  to 
contemporaries  to  require  it,  and,  therefore,  they 
waste  their  breath  on  more  solemn  matters  of  state, 
all  important  in  their  generation,  but  not  worth  a 
rush  in  the  present.  What  would  the  historian  not 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  287 

give,  could  lie  borrow  those  fine  touches  of  nature 
with  which  the  novelist  illustrates  the  characters  of 
his  actors — natural  touches,  indeed,  but,  in  truth,  just 
as  artificial  as  any  other  part — all  coined  in  the  im¬ 
agination  of  the  writer.  There  is  the  same  differ¬ 
ence  between  his  occupation  and  that  of  the  novel¬ 
ist  that  there  is  between  the  historical  and  the  por¬ 
trait  painter.  The  former  necessarily  takes  some 
great  subject,  with  great  personages,  all  strutting 
about  in  gorgeous  state  attire,  and  air  of  solemn 
tragedy,  while  his  brother  artist  insinuates  himself 
into  the  family  groups,  and  picks  out  natural,  famil¬ 
iar  scenes  and  faces,  laughing  or  weeping,  but  in  the 
charming  undress  of  nature.  What  wonder  that 
novel-reading  should  be  so  much  more  amusing  than 
history  ? 

But  we  have  already  trespassed  too  freely  on  the 
patience  of  our  readers,  who  will  think  the  rambling 
spirit  of  our  author  contagious.  Before  dismissing 
him,  however,  we  will  give  a  taste  of  his  quality  by 
one  or  two  extracts,  not  very  germane  to  English 
literature,  but  about  as  much  so  as  a  great  part  of 
the  work.  The  first  is  a  poetical  sally  on  Bona¬ 
parte’s  burial-place,  quite  in  Monsieur  Chateaubri¬ 
and’s  peculiar  vein. 

“  The  solitude  of  Napoleon,  in  his  exile  and  his 
tomb,  has  thrown  another  kind  of  spell  over  a  brill¬ 
iant  memory.  Alexander  did  not  die  in  sight  of 
Greece ;  he  disappeared  amid  the  pomp  of  distant 
Babylon.  Bonaparte  did  not  close  his  eyes  in  the 
presence  of  France  ;  he  passed  away  in  the  gorgeous 


288  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

horizon  of  the  torrid  zone.  The  man  who  had 
shown  himself  in  such  powerful  reality,  vanished  like 
a  dream ;  his  life,  which  belonged  to  history,  co-op¬ 
erated  in  the  poetry  of  his  death.  He  now  sleeps 
forever,  like  a  hermit  or  a  paria,  beneath  a  willow, 
in  a  narrow  valley,  surrounded  by  steep  rocks,  at  the 
extremity  of  a  lonely  path.  The  depth  of  the  si¬ 
lence  which  presses  upon  him  can  only  be  compa¬ 
red  to  the  vastness  of  that  tumult  which  had  sur¬ 
rounded  him.  Nations  are  absent ;  their  throng  has 
retired.  The  bird  of  the  tropics,  harnessed  to  the 
car  of  the  sun,  as  Buffon  magnificently  expresses  it, 
speeding  his  flight  downward  from  the  planet  of 
light,  rests  alone,  for  a  moment,  over  the  ashes,  the 
weight  of  which  has  shaken  the  equilibrium  of  the 

“  Bonaparte  crossed  the  ocean  to  repair  to  his  final 
exile,  regardless  of  that  beautiful  sky  which  delighted 
Columbus,  Vasco  de  Gama,  and  Camoens.  Stretch¬ 
ed  upon  the  ship’s  stern,  he  perceived  not  that  un¬ 
known  constellations  were  sparkling  over  his  head. 
His  powerful  glance,  for  the  first  time,  encountered 
their  rays.  What  to  him  were  stars  which  he  had 
never  seen  from  his  bivouacs,  and  which  had  never 
shone  over  his  empire  ?  Nevertheless,  not  one  of 
them  has  failed  to  fulfil  its  destiny :  one  half  of  the 
firmament  spread  its  light  over  his  cradle,  the  other 
half  was  reserved  to  illuminate  his  tomb.” — Vol.  ii., 
p.  185,  186. 

The  next  extract  relates  to  the  British  statesman, 
William  Pitt : 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  289 


“  Pitt,  tall  and  slender,  had  an  air  at  once  melan¬ 
choly  and  sarcastic.  His  delivery  was  cold,  his  in¬ 
tonation  monotonous,  his  action  scarcely  perceptible. 
At  the  same  time,  the  lucidness  and  the  fluency  of 
his  thoughts,  the  logic  of  his  arguments,  suddenly 
irradiated  with  flashes  of  eloquence,  rendered  his  tal¬ 
ent  something  above  the  ordinary  line. 

“I  frequently  saw  Pitt  walking  across  St.  James’s 
Park  from  his  own  house  to  the  palace.  On  his 
part,  George  the  Third  arrived  from  Windsor,  after 
drinking  beer  out  of  a  pewter  pot  with  the  farmers 
of  the  neighbourhood ;  he  drove  through  the  mean 
courts  of  his  mean  habitation  in  a  gray  chariot,  fol¬ 
lowed  by  a  few  of  the  horse-guards.  This  was  the 
master  of  the  kings  of  Europe,  as  five  or  six  mer¬ 
chants  of  the  city  are  the  masters  of  India.  Pitt, 
dressed  in  black,  with  a  steel-hilted  sword  by  his 
side,  and  his  hat  under  his  arm,  ascended,  taking  two 
or  three  steps  at  a  time.  In  his  passage  he  only  met 
with  three  or  four  emigrants,  who  had  nothing  to  do. 
Casting  on  us  a  disdainful  look,  he  turned  up  his 
nose  and  his  pale  face,  and  passed  on. 

“At  home,  this  great  financier  kept  no  sort  of  or¬ 
der  ;  he  had  no  regular  hours  for  his  meals  or  for 
sleep.  Over  head  and  ears  in  debt,  he  paid  nobody, 
and  never  could  take  the  trouble  to  cast  up  a  bill. 
A  valet  de  chambre  managed  his  house.  Ill  dressed, 
without  pleasure,  without  passion,  greedy  of  power, 
he  despised  honours,  and  would  not  be  anything 
more  than  William  Pitt. 

“  In  the  month  of  June,  1822,  Lord  Liverpool 

O  o 


290  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

took  me  to  dine  at  his  country-house.  As  we  cross¬ 
ed  Putney  Heath,  he  showed  me  the  small  house 
where  the  son  of  Lord  Chatham,  the  statesman  who 
had  had  Europe  in  his  pay,  and  distributed  with  his 
own  hand  all  the  treasures  of  the  world,  died  in 
poverty.” — Vol.  ii.,  p.  277,  278. 

The  following  extracts  show  the  changes  that 
have  taken  place  in  English  manners  and  society, 
and  may  afford  the  “  whiskered  pandour”  of  our  own 
day  an  opportunity  of  contrasting  his  style  of  dan¬ 
dyism  with  that  of  the  preceding  generation  : 

“  Separated  from  the  Continent  by  a  long  war, 
the  English  retained  their  manners  and  their  nation¬ 
al  character  till  the  end  of  the  last  century.  All  was 
not  yet  machine  in  the  working  classes — folly  in  the 
upper  classes.  On  the  same  pavements  where  you 
now  meet  squalid  figures  and  men  in  frock  coats, 
you  were  passed  by  young  girls  with  white  tippets, 
straw  hats  tied  under  the  chin  with  a  riband,  with 
a  basket  on  the  arm,  in  which  was  fruit  or  a  book : 
all  kept  their  eyes  cast  down  ;  all  blushed  when  one 
looked  at  them.  Frock  coats,  without  any  other, 
were  so  unusual  in  London  in  1793,  that  a  woman, 
deploring  with  tears  the  death  of  Louis  the  Six¬ 
teenth,  said  to  me,  ‘  But,  my  dear  sir,  is  it  true  that 
the  poor  king  was  dressed  in  a  frock  coat  when  they 
cut  off  his  head  V 

“  The  gentle men-farmers  had  not  yet  sold  their 
patrimony  to  take  up  their  residence  in  London  ; 
they  still  formed,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that 
independent  fraction  which,  transferring  their  sup- 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  291 

port  from  the  opposition  to  the  ministerial  side,  up¬ 
held  the  ideas  of  order  and  propriety.  They  hunted 
the  fox  and  shot  pheasants  in  autumn,  ate  fat  goose 
at  Michaelmas,  greeted  the  sirloin  with  shouts  of 
‘  Roast  beef  forever  !’  complained  of  the  present,  ex¬ 
tolled  the  past,  cursed  Pitt  and  the  war,  which  doub¬ 
led  the  price  of  port  wine,  and  went  to  bed  drunk, 
to  begin  the  same  life  again  on  the  following  day. 
They  felt  quite  sure  that  the  glory  of  Great  Britain 
would  not  perish  so  long  as  ‘  God  save  the  King’  was 
sung,  the  rotten  boroughs  maintained,  the  game-laws 
enforced,  and  hares  and  partridges  could  be  sold  by 
stealth  at  market,  under  the  names  of  lions  and  os¬ 
triches.” — Yol.  ii.,  p.  279,  280. 

“  In  1822,  at  the  time  of  my  embassy  to  London, 
the  fashionable  was  expected  to  exhibit,  at  the  first 
glance,  an  unhappy  and  unhealthy  man ;  to  have  an 
air  of  negligence  about  his  person,  long  nails,  a  beard 
neither  entire  nor  shaven,  but  as  if  grown  for  a  mo¬ 
ment  unawares,  and  forgotten  during  the  preoccupa¬ 
tions  of  wretchedness  ;  hair  in  disorder ;  a  sublime, 
mild,  wicked  eye  ;  lips  compressed  in  disdain  of  hu¬ 
man  nature ;  a  Byronian  heart,  overwhelmed  with 
weariness  and  disgust  of  life. 

“  The  dandy  of  the  present  day  must  have  a  con¬ 
quering,  frivolous,  insolent  look.  He  must  pay  par¬ 
ticular  attention  to  his  toilet,  wear  mustaches,  or  a 
beard  trimmed  into  a  circle  like  Queen  Elizabeth’s 
ruff,  or  like  the  radiant  disc  of  the  sun.  He  shows 
the  proud  independence  of  his  character  by  keeping 
his  hat  upon  his  head,  by  lolling  upon  sofas,  by 


292  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

thrusting  his  boots  into  the  faces  of  the  ladies  seated 
in  admiration  upon  chairs  before  him.  He  rides 
with  a  cane,  which  he  carries  like  a  taper,  regard¬ 
less  of  the  horse,  which  he  bestrides,  as  it  were,  by 
accident.  His  health  must  be  perfect,  and  he  must 
always  have  five  or  six  felicities  upon  his  hands. 
Some  radical  dandies,  who  have  advanced  the  far¬ 
thest  towards  the  future,  have  a  pipe.  But,  no  doubt, 
all  this  has  changed,  even  during  the  time  that  I 
have  taken  to  describe  it.” — Vol.  ii.,  p.  303,  304. 

The  avowed  purpose  of  the  present  work,  singu¬ 
lar  as  it  may  seem  from  the  above  extracts,  is  to 
serve  as  an  introduction  to  a  meditated  translation 
of  Milton  into  French,  since  wholly,  or  in  part, 
completed  by  M.  Chateaubriand,  who  thinks,  truly 
enough,  that  Milton’s  “  political  ideas  make  him  a 
man  of  our  own  epoch.”  When  an  exile  in  Eng¬ 
land,  in  his  early  life,  during  the  troubles  of  the  Rev¬ 
olution,  our  author  earned  an  honourable  subsistence 
by  translating  some  of  Milton’s  verses ;  and  he  now 
proposes  to  render  the  bard  and  himself  the  same 
kind  office  by  his  labours  on  a  more  extended  scale. 
Thus  he  concludes :  “  I  again  seat  myself  at  the 
table  of  my  poet.  He  will  have  nourished  me  in 
my  youth  and  my  old  age.  It  is  nobler  and  safer  to 
have  recourse  to  glory  than  to  power.”  Our  author’s 
situation  is  an  indifferent  commentary  on  the  value 
of  literary  fame,  at  least  on  its  pecuniary  value.  No 
man  has  had  more  of  it  in  his  day.  No  man  has 
been  more  alert  to  make  the  most  of  it  by  frequent, 
reiterated  appearance  before  the  public — whether  in 


Chateaubriand’s  English  literature.  293 

full  dress  or  dishabille,  jet  always  before  them  ;  and 
now,  in  the  decline  of  life,  we  find  him  obtaining  a 
scanty  support  by  “French  translation  and  Italian 
song.”  We  heartily  hope  that  the  bard  of  “Para¬ 
dise  Lost”  will  do  better  for  his  translator  than  he 
did  for  himself,  and  that  M.  de  Chateaubriand  will 
put  more  than  five  pounds  in  his  pocket  by  his  lit¬ 
erary  labour. 


294  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


BANCROFT’S  UNITED  STATES.* 

JANUARY,  1841. 

The  celebrated  line  of  Bishop  Berkeley, 

“  Westward,  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  way,” 

is  too  gratifying  to  national  vanity  not  to  be  often 
quoted  (though  not  always  quoted  right)  ;  and  if  we 
look  on  it  in  the  nature  of  a  prediction,  the  comple¬ 
tion  of  it  not  being  limited  to  any  particular  time,  it 
will  not  be  easy  to  disprove  it.  Had  the  bishop 
substituted  “  freedom”  for  “  empire,”  it  would  be  al¬ 
ready  fully  justified  by  experience.  It  is  curious  to 
observe  how  steadily  the  progress  of  freedom,  civil 
and  religious — of  the  enjoyment  of  those  rights,  which 
may  be  called  the  natural  rights  of  humanity — has 
gone  on  from  east  to  west,  and  how  precisely  the 
more  or  less  liberal  character  of  the  social  institu¬ 
tions  of  a  country  may  be  determined  by  its  geo¬ 
graphical  position,  as  falling  within  the  limits  of  one 
of  the  three  quarters  of  the  globe  occupied  wholly  or 
in  part  by  members  of  the  great  Caucasian  family. 

Thus,  in  Asia  we  find  only  far-extended  despot¬ 
isms,  in  which  but  two  relations  are  recognised, 
those  of  master  and  slave  :  a  solitary  master,  and  a 
nation  of  slaves.  No  Constitution  exists  there  to 
limit  his  authority;  no  intermediate  body  to  coun- 

*  “  History  of  the  United  States  from  the  Discovery  of  the  American 
Continent.  By  George  Bancroft.”  Yol.iii.  Boston  :  Charles  C.  Little 
and  James  Brown.  8vo,  pp.  468. 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


295 


terbalance,  or,  at  least,  shield  the  people  from  its 
exercise.  The  people  have  no  political  existence. 
The  monarch  is  literally  the  state.  The  religion 
of  such  countries  is  of  the  same  complexion  with 
their  government.  The  free  spirit  of  Christianity, 
quickening  and  elevating  the  soul  by  the  conscious¬ 
ness  of  its  glorious  destiny,  made  few  proselytes 
there ;  hut  Mohammedanism,  with  its  doctrines  of 
blind  fatality,  found  ready  favour  with  those  who 
had  already  surrendered  their  wills — their  responsi¬ 
bility — to  an  earthly  master.  In  such  countries,  of 
course,  there  has  been  little  progress  in  science. 
Ornamental  arts,  and  even  the  literature  of  imagina¬ 
tion,  have  been  cultivated  with  various  success ;  hut 
little  has  been  done  in  those  pursuits  which  depend 
on  freedom  of  inquiry,  and  are  connected  with  the 
best  interests  of  humanity.  The  few  monuments 
of  an  architectural  kind  that  strike  the  traveller’s 
eye  are  the  cold  memorials  of  pomp  and  selfish  van¬ 
ity,  not  those  of  public  spirit,  directed  to  enlarge  the 
resources  and  civilization  of  an  empire. 

As  we  cross  the  boundaries  into  Europe,  among 
the  people  of  the  same  primitive  stock  and  under 
the  same  parallels,  we  may  imagine  ourselves  trans¬ 
planted  to  another  planet.  Man  no  longer  grovels 
in  the  dust  beneath  a  master’s  frown.  He  walks 
erect,  as  lord  of  the  creation,  his  eyes  raised  to  that 
heaven  to  which  his  destinies  call  him.  He  is  a 
free  agent — thinks,  speaks,  acts  for  himself;  enjoys 
the  fruits  of  his  own  industry ;  follows  the  career 
suited  to  his  own  genius  and  taste  ;  explores  fear- 


296  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

lessly  the  secrets  of  time  and  nature ;  lives  under 
laws  which  he  has  assisted  in  framing;  demands 
justice  as  his  right  when  those  laws  are  invaded. 
In  his  freedom  of  speculation  and  action  he  has  de¬ 
vised  various  forms  of  government.  In  most  of  them 
the  monarchical  principle  is  recognised  ;  but  the 
power  of  the  monarch  is  limited  b y  written  or  cus¬ 
tomary  rules.  The  people  at  large  enter  more  or 
less  into  the  exercise  of  government ;  and  a  numer¬ 
ous  aristocracy,  interposed  between  them  and  the 
crown,  secures  them  from  the  oppression  of  Eastern 
tyranny,  while  this  body  itself  is  so  far  an  improve¬ 
ment  in  the  social  organization,  that  the  power, 
instead  of  being  concentrated  in  a  single  person 
—  plaintiff,  judge,  and  executioner — is  distributed 
among  a  large  number  of  different  individuals  and 
interests.  This  is  a  great  advance,  in  itself,  towards 
popular  freedom. 

The  tendency,  almost  universal,  is  to  advance  still 
farther.  It  is  this  war  of  opinion — this  contest  be¬ 
tween  light  and  darkness,  now  going  forward  in 
most  of  the  countries  of  Europe — which  furnishes 
the  point  of  view  from  which  their  history  is  to  be 
studied  in  the  present,  and,  it  may  be,  the  following 
centuries ;  for  revolutions  in  society,  when  founded 
on  opinion — the  only  stable  foundation,  the  only 
foundation  at  which  the  friend  of  humanity  does  not 
shudder — must  be  the  slow  work  of  time ;  and  who 
would  wish  the  good  cause  to  be  so  precipitated 
that,  in  eradicating  the  old  abuses  which  have  inter¬ 
woven  themselves  with  every  stone  and  pillar  of  the 


297 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 

building,  the  noble  building  itself,  which  has  so  long 
afforded  security  to  its  inmates,  should  be  laid  in 
ruins  ?  What  is  the  best,  what  the  worst  form  of 
government,  in  the  abstract,  may  be  matter  of  de¬ 
bate  ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  best  will 
become  the  worst  to  a  people  who  blindly  rush  into 
it  without  the  preliminary  training  for  comprehend¬ 
ing  and  conducting  it.  Such  transitions  must,  at 
least,  cost  the  sacrifice  of  generations ;  and  the  pa¬ 
triotism  must  be  singularly  pure  and  abstract  which, 
at  such  cost,  would  purchase  the  possible,  or  even 
probable,  good  of  a  remote  posterity.  Various  have 
been  the  efforts  in  the  Old  World  at  popular  forms 
of  government,  but,  from  some  cause  or  other,  they 
have  failed  ;  and  however  time,  a  wider  intercourse, 
a  greater  familiarity  with  the  practical  duties  of 
representation,  and,  not  least  of  all,  our  own  auspi¬ 
cious  example,  may  prepare  the  European  mind  for 
the  possession  of  Republican  freedom,  it  is  very  cer¬ 
tain  that,  at  the  present  moment,  Europe  is  not  the 
place  for  Republics. 

The  true  soil  for  these  is  our  own  continent,  the 
New  World,  the  last  of  the  three  great  geographical 
divisions  of  which  we  have  spoken.  This  is  the 
spot  on  which  the  beautiful  theories  of  the  European 
philosopher — who  had  risen  to  the  full  freedom  of 
speculation,  while  action  was  controlled — have  been 
reduced  to  practice.  The  atmosphere  here  seems 
as  fatal  to  the  arbitrary  institutions  of  the  Old 
World  as  that  has  been  to  the  Democratic  forms  of 
our  own.  It  seems  scarcely  possible  that  any  other 

P  p 


298  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

organization  than  these  latter  should  exist  here.  In 
three  centuries  from  the  discovery  of  the  country, 
the  various  races  by  which  it  is  tenanted,  some  of 
them  from  the  least  liberal  of  the  European  mon¬ 
archies,  have,  with  few  exceptions,  come  into  the 
adoption  of  institutions  of  a  Republican  character. 
Toleration,  civil  and  religious,  has  been  proclaimed, 
and  enjoyed  to  an  extent  unknown  since  the  world 
began,  throughout  the  wide  borders  of  this  vast  con¬ 
tinent.  Alas !  for  those  portions  which  have  assu¬ 
med  the  exercise  of  these  rights  without  fully  com¬ 
prehending  their  import ;  who  have  been  intoxicated 
with  the  fumes  of  freedom  instead  of  drawing  nour¬ 
ishment  from  its  living  principle. 

It  was  a  fortunate,  or,  to  speak  more  properly,  a 
providential  thing,  that  the  discovery  of  the  New 
World  was  postponed  to  the  precise  period  when  it 
occurred.  Had  it  taken  place  at  an  earlier  time — 
during  the  flourishing  period  of  the  feudal  ages,  for 
example — the  old  institutions  of  Europe,  with  their 
hallowed  abuses,  might  have  been  ingrafted  on  this 
new  stock,  and,  instead  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of 
life,  we  should  have  furnished  only  varieties  of  a  kind 
already  far  exhausted  and  hastening  to  decay.  But, 
happily,  some  important  discoveries  in  science,  and, 
above  all,  the  glorious  Reformation,  gave  an  electric 
shock  to  the  intellect,  long  benumbed  under  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  a  tyrannical  priesthood.  It  taught  men  to 
distrust  authority,  to  trace  effects  back  to  their  caus¬ 
es,  to  search  for  themselves,  and  to  take  no  guide  but 
the  reason  which  God  had  given  them.  It  taught 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


299 


them  to  claim  the  right  of  free  inquiry  as  their  in¬ 
alienable  birthright,  and,  with  free  inquiry,  freedom 
of  action.  The  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries 
were  the  period  of  the  mighty  struggle  between  the 
conflicting  elements  of  religion,  as  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  have  been  that  of  the  great  contest 
for  civil  liberty. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  universal  ferment,  and 
in  consequence  of  it,  that  these  shores  were  first 
peopled  by  our  Puritan  ancestors.  Here  they  found 
a  world  where  they  might  verify  the  value  of  those 
theories  which  had  been  derided  as  visionary  or 
denounced  as  dangerous  in  their  own  land.  All 
around  was  free — free  as  nature  herself :  the  mighty 
streams  rolling  on  in  their  majesty,  as  they  had  con¬ 
tinued  to  roll  from  the  creation ;  the  forests,  which 
no  hand  had  violated,  flourishing  in  primeval  gran¬ 
deur  and  beauty ;  their  only  tenants  the  wild  ani¬ 
mals,  or  the  Indians  nearly  as  wild,  scarcely  held 
together  by  any  tie  of  social  polity.  Nowhere  was 
the  trace  of  civilized  man  or  of  his  curious  contri¬ 
vances.  Here  was  no  Star  Chamber  nor  Court  of 
High  Commission;  no  racks,  nor  jails,  nor  gibbets; 
no  feudal  tyrant  to  grind  the  poor  man  to  the  dust 
on  which  he  toiled ;  no  Inquisition,  to  pierce  into 
the  thought,  and  to  make  thought  a  crime.  The 
only  eye  that  was  upon  them  was  the  eye  of  Heaven. 

True,  indeed,  in  the  first  heats  of  suffering  enthu¬ 
siasm  they  did  not  extend  that  charity  to  others 
which  they  claimed  for  themselves.  It  was  a  blot 
on  their  characters,  but  one  which  they  share  in 


300  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

common  with  most  reformers.  The  zeal  requisite 
for  great  revolutions,  whether  in  church  or  state,  is 
rarely  attended  hy  charity  for  difference  of  opinion. 
Those  who  are  willing  to  do  and  to  suffer  bravely 
for  their  own  doctrines,  attach  a  value  to  them  which 
makes  them  impatient  of  opposition  from  others. 
The  martyr  for  conscience’  sake  cannot  comprehend 
the  necessity  of  leniency  to  those  who  denounce 
those  truths  for  which  he  is  prepared  to  lay  down 
his  own  life.  If  he  set  so  little  value  on  his  own  life, 
is  it  natural  he  should  set  more  on  that  of  others  ? 
The  Dominican,  who  dragged  his  victims  to  the 
fires  of  the  Inquisition  in  Spain,  freely  gave  up  his 
ease  and  his  life  to  the  duties  of  a  missionary  among 
the  heathen.  The  Jesuits,  who  suffered  martyrdom 
among  the  American  savages  in  the  propagation  of 
their  faith,  stimulated  those  very  savages  to  their  hor¬ 
rid  massacres  of  the  Protestant  settlements  of  New- 
England.  God  has  not  often  combined  charity  with 
enthusiasm.  When  he  has  done  so,  he  has  pro¬ 
duced  his  noblest  wrork — a  More,  or  a  Fenelon. 

But  if  the  first  settlers  were  intolerant  in  practice, 
they  brought  with  them  the  living  principle  of  free¬ 
dom,  which  would  survive  when  their  generation  had 
passed  away.  They  could  not  avoid  it;  for  their 
coming  here  was  in  itself  an  assertion  of  that  prin¬ 
ciple.  They  came  for  conscience’  sake — to  worship 
God  in  their  own  way.  Freedom  of  political  insti¬ 
tutions  they  at  once  avowed.  Every  citizen  took 
his  part  in  the  political  scheme,  and  enjoyed  all  the 
consideration  of  an  equal  participation  in  civil  privi- 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


301 


leges:  and  liberty  in  political  matters  gradually 
brought  with  it  a  corresponding  liberty  in  religious 
concerns.  In  their  subsequent  contest  with  the 
mother  country  they  learned  a  reason  for  their  faith, 
and  the  best  manner  of  defending  it.  Their  liber¬ 
ties  struck  a  deep  root  in  the  soil  amid  storms  which 
shook,  but  could  not  prostrate  them.  It  is  this  strug¬ 
gle  with  the  mother  country,  this  constant  assertion 
of  the  right  of  self-government,  this  tendency — fee¬ 
ble  in  its  beginning,  increasing  with  increasing  age 
— towards  Republican  institutions,  which  connects 
the  Colonial  history  with  that  of  the  Union,  and 
forms  the  true  point  of  view  from  which  it  is  to  be 
regarded. 

The  history  of  this  country  naturally  divides  it¬ 
self  into  three  great  periods  :  the  Colonial,  when  the 
idea  of  independence  was  slowly  and  gradually  ri¬ 
pening  in  the  American  mind  ;  the  Revolutionary, 
when  this  idea  was  maintained  by  arms  ;  and  that 
of  the  Union,  when  it  was  reduced  to  practice. 
The  first  two  heads  are  now  ready  for  the  historian  ; 
the  last  is  not  yet  ripe  for  him.  Important  contribu¬ 
tions  may  be  made  to  it  in  the  form  of  local  narra¬ 
tives,  personal  biographies,  political  discussions,  sub¬ 
sidiary  documents,  and  memoir es  pour  servir ;  but  we 
are  too  near  the  strife,  too  much  in  the  dust  and 
mist  of  the  parties,  to  have  reached  a  point  sufficient¬ 
ly  distant  and  elevated  to  embrace  the  whole  field 
of  operations  in  one  view,  and  paint  it  in  its  true 
colours  and  proportions  for  the  eye  of  posterity. 
We  are,  besides,  too  new  as  an  independent  nation, 


302  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

our  existence  has  been  too  short,  to  satisfy  the  skep¬ 
ticism  of  those  who  distrust  the  perpetuity  of  our  po¬ 
litical  institutions.  They  do  not  consider  the  prob¬ 
lem,  so  important  to  humanity,  as  yet  solved.  Such 
skeptics  are  found,  not  only  abroad,  but  at  home. 
Not  that  the  latter  suppose  the  possibility  of  again 
returning  to  those  forms  of  arbitrary  government 
which  belong  to  the  Old  World.  It  would  not  be 
more  chimerical  to  suspect  the  Emperor  Nicholas, 
or  Prince  Metternich,  or  the  citizen-king  Louis 
Philippe,  of  being  Republicans  at  heart,  and  sighing 
for  a  democracy,  than  to  suspect  the  people  of  this 
country  (above  all,  of  New-England,  the  most  thor¬ 
ough  democracy  in  existence) — who  have  inherited 
Republican  principles  and  feelings  from  their  ances¬ 
tors,  drawn  them  in  with  their  mother’s  milk,  breath¬ 
ed  the  atmosphere  of  them  from  their  cradle,  partici¬ 
pated  in  their  equal  rights  and  glorious  privileges — 
of  foregoing  their  birthright  and  falsifying  their  na¬ 
ture  so  far  as  to  acquiesce  in  any  other  than  a  pop¬ 
ular  form  of  government.  But  there  are  some  skep¬ 
tics  who,  when  they  reflect  on  the  fate  of  similar 
institutions  in  other  countries  ;  when  they  see  our 
sister  states  of  South  America,  after  nobly  winning 
their  independence,  split  into  insignificant  fractions ; 
when  they  see  the  abuses  which  from  time  to  time 
have  crept  into  our  own  administration,  and  the  vi¬ 
olence  offered,  in  manifold  ways,  to  the  Constitution; 
when  they  see  ambitious  and  able  statesmen  in  one 
section  of  the  country  proclaiming  principles  which 
must  palsy  the  arm  of  the  Federal  Government,  and 


303 


BANCROFT'S  UNITED  STATES. 

urging  the  people  of  their  own  quarter  to  efforts  for 
securing  their  independence  of  every  other  quarter 
— there  are,  we  say,  some  wise  and  benevolent 
minds  among  us,  who,  seeing  all  this,  feel  a  natural 
distrust  as  to  the  stability  of  the  federal  compact,  and 
consider  the  experiment  as  still  in  progress. 

We,  indeed,  are  not  of  that  number,  while  we  re¬ 
spect  and  feel  the  weight  of  their  scruples.  We 
sympathize  fully  in  those  feelings,  those  hopes,  it 
may  be,  which  animate  the  great  mass  of  our  coun¬ 
trymen.  Hope  is  the  attribute  of  republics :  it 
should  be  peculiarly  so  of  ours.  Our  fortune  is  all 
in  the  advance.  We  have  no  past,  as  compared 
with  the  nations  of  the  Old  World.  Our  existence 
is  but  two  centuries,  dating  from  our  embryo  state ; 
our  real  existence  as  an  independent  people  little 
more  than  half  a  century.  We  are  to  look  forward, 
then,  and  go  forward,  not  with  vainglorious  boast¬ 
ing,  but  with  resolution  and  honest  confidence. 
Boasting,  indecorous  in  all,  is  peculiarly  so  in  those 
who  take  credit  for  the  great  things  they  are  going 
to  do,  not  those  they  have  done.  The  glorification 
of  an  Englishman  or  a  Frenchman,  with  a  long  line 
of  annals  in  his  rear,  may  be  offensive ;  that  of  an 
American  is  ridiculous.  But  we  may  feel  a  just 
confidence  from  the  past  that  we  shall  be  true  to 
ourselves  for  the  future  ;  that,  to  borrow  a  cant 
phrase  of  the  day,  we  shall  be  true  to  our  mission — 
the  most  momentous  ever  intrusted  to  a  nation  ;  that 
there  is  sufficient  intelligence  and  moral  principle  in 
the  people,  if  not  always  to  choose  the  best  rulers, 


304  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

at  least  to  right  themselves  by  the  ejection  of  bad 
ones  when  they  find  they  have  been  abused ;  that 
they  have  intelligence  enough  to  understand  that 
their  only  consideration,  their  security  as  a  nation, 
is  in  union  ;  that  separation  into  smaller  communi¬ 
ties  is  the  creation  of  so  many  hostile  states ;  that 
a  large  extent  of  empire,  instead  of  being  an  evil, 
from  embracing  regions  of  irreconcilable  local  inter¬ 
ests,  is  a  benefit,  since  it  affords  the  means  of  that 
commercial  reciprocity  which  makes  the  country, 
by  its  own  resources,  independent  of  every  other; 
and  that  the  representatives  drawn  from  these  “mag¬ 
nificent  distances”  will,  on  the  whole,  be  apt  to  le¬ 
gislate  more  independently,  and  on  broader  princi¬ 
ples,  than  if  occupied  with  the  concerns  of  a  petty 
state,  where  each  legislator  is  swayed  by  the  paltry 
factions  of  his  own  village.  In  all  this  we  may  hon¬ 
estly  confide;  but  our  confidence  will  not  pass  for 
argument,  will  not  be  accepted  as  a  solution  of  the 
problem.  Time  only  can  solve  it;  and  until  the  pe¬ 
riod  has  elapsed  which  shall  have  fairly  tried  the 
strength  of  our  institutions,  through  peace  and  through 
war,  through  adversity  and  more  trying  prosperity, 
the  time  will  not  have  come  to  write  the  history  of 
the  Union.* 

*  The  preceding  cheering  remarks  on  the  auspicious  destinies  of  our 
country  were  written  more  than  four  years  ago  ;  and  it  is  not  now  as 
many  days  since  we  have  received  the  melancholy  tidings  that  the  pro¬ 
ject  for  the  Annexation  of  Texas  has  been  sanctioned  by  Congress.  The 
remarks  in  the  text  on  “  the  extent  of  empire”  had  reference  only  to  that 
legitimate  extent  which  might  grow  out  of  the  peaceful  settlement  and 
civilization  of  a  territory,  sufficiently  ample  certainly,  that  already  be¬ 
longs  to  us.  The  craving  for  foreign  acquisitions  has  ever  been  a  most 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


305 


But  still,  results  have  been  obtained  sufficiently 
glorious  to  give  great  consideration  to  the  two  pre¬ 
liminary  narratives,  namely,  of  the  Colonies  and  the 
Revolution,  which  prepared  the  way  for  the  Union. 
Indeed,  without  these  results,  they  would  both,  how¬ 
ever  important  in  themselves,  have  lost  much  of  their 
dignity  and  interest.  Of  these  two  narratives,  the 
former,  although  less  momentous  than  the  latter,  is 
most  difficult  to  treat. 

It  is  not  that  the  historian  is  called  on  to  pry  into 
the  dark  recesses  of  antiquity,  the  twilight  of  civili¬ 
zation,  mystifying  and  magnifying  every  object  to 
the  senses,  nor  to  unravel  some  poetical  mythology, 
hanging  its  metaphorical  illusions  around  everything 
in  nature,  mingling  fact  with  fiction,  the  material 
with  the  spiritual,  until  the  honest  inquirer  after  truth 
may  fold  his  arms  in  despair  before  he  can  cry 
evprjua ;  nor  is  lie  compelled  to  unroll  musty,  worm- 
eaten  parchments,  and  dusty  tomes  in  venerable 
black  letter,  of  the  good  times  of  honest  Caxton  and 
Winken  de  Worde,  nor  to  go  about  gleaning  tra¬ 
ditionary  tales  and  ballads  in  some  obsolete  provin- 

fatal  symptom  in  the  history  of  republics  ;  but  when  these  acquisitions 
are  made,  as  in  the  present  instance,  in  contempt  of  constitutional  law, 
and  in  disregard  of  the  great  principles  of  international  justice,  the  evil 
assumes  a  tenfold  magnitude  ;  for  it  flows  not  so  much  from  the  single 
act  as  from  the  principle  on  which  it  rests,  and  which  may  open  the  way 
to  the  indefinite  perpetration  of  such  acts.  In  glancing  my  eye  over  the 
text  at  this  gloomy  moment,  and  considering  its  general  import,  I  was 
unwilling  to  let  it  go  into  the  world  with  my  name  to  it,  without  enter¬ 
ing  my  protest,  in  common  with  so  many  better  and  wiser  in  our  coun¬ 
try,  against  a  measure  which  every  friend  of  freedom,  both  at  home  and 
abroad,  may  justly  lament  as  the  most  serious  shock  yet  given  to  tho 
stability  of  our  glorious  institutions. 


306  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

cial  patois.  The  record  is  plain  and  legible,  and  he 
need  never  go  behind  it.  The  antiquity  of  his 
story  goes  but  little  more  than  two  centuries  back  ; 
a  very  modern  antiquity.  The  commencement  of  it 
was  not  in  the  dark  ages,  but  in  a  period  of  illumi¬ 
nation  ;  an  age  yet  glowing  with  the  imagination  of 
Shakspeare  and  Spenser,  the  philosophy  of  Bacon, 
the  learning  of  Coke  and  of  Hooker.  The  early 
passages  of  his  story — coeval  with  Hampden,  and 
Milton,  and  Sidney — belong  to  the  times  in  which 
the  same  struggle  for  the  rights  of  conscience  was 
going  on  in  the  land  of  our  fathers  as  in  our  own. 
There  w  as  no  danger  that  the  light  of  the  Pilgrim 
should  be  hid  under  a  bushel,  or  that  there  should 
be  any  dearth  of  chronicler  or  bard — such  as  they 
were — to  record  his  sacrifice.  And  fortunate  for  us 
that  it  was  so,  since  in  this  w^ay  every  part  of  this 
great  enterprise,  from  its  conception  to  its  consum¬ 
mation,  is  brought  into  the  light  of  day.  We  are 
•  put  in  possession,  not  merely  of  the  action,  but  of 
the  motives  which  led  to  it ;  and  as  to  the  character 
of  the  actors,  are  enabled  to  do  justice  to  those  who, 
if  we  pronounce  from  their  actions  only,  would  seem 
not  always  careful  to  do  justice  to  themselves. 

The  embarrassment  of  the  Colonial  history  arises 
from  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  a  central  point  of  in¬ 
terest  among  so  many  petty  states,  each  independent 
of  the  others,  and  all,  at  the  same  time,  so  depend¬ 
ant  on  a  foreign  one  as  to  impair  the  historic  digni¬ 
ty  which  attaches  to  great,  powerful,  and  self-regu¬ 
lated  communities.  This  embarrassment  must  be 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


307 


overcome  by  the  author’s  detecting,  and  skilfully 
keeping  before  the  reader,  some  great  principle  of 
action,  if  such  exist,  that  may  give  unity,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  importance  to  the  theme.  Such  a  prin¬ 
ciple  did  exist  in  that  tendency  to  independence, 
which,  however  feeble,  till  fanned  by  the  breath  of 
persecution  into  a  blaze,  was  nevertheless  the  vivi¬ 
fying  principle,  as  before  remarked,  of  our  ante-rev¬ 
olutionary  annals. 

Whoever  has  dipped  much  into  historical  reading 
is  aware  how  few  have  succeeded  in  weaving  an 
harmonious  tissue  from  the  motley  and  tangled  skein 
of  general  history.  The  most  fortunate  illustration 
of  this  within  our  recollection  is  Sismondi’s  Repub- 
liques  Italiennes ,  a  work  in  sixteen  volumes,  in  which 
the  author  has  brought  on  the  stage  all  the  various 
governments  of  Italy  for  a  thousand  years,  and  in 
almost  every  variety  of  combination.  Yet  there  is 
a  pervading  principle  in  this  great  mass  of  apparent¬ 
ly  discordant  interests.  That  principle  was  the  rise 
and  decline  of  liberty.  It  is  the  key-note  to  every 
revolution  that  occurs.  It  give  an  harmonious  tone 
to  the  many-coloured  canvass,  which  would  else 
have  offended  by  its  glaring  contrasts,  and  the  start¬ 
ling  violence  of  its  transitions.  The  reader  is  inter¬ 
ested  in  spite  of  the  transitions,  but  knows  not  the 
cause.  This  is  the  skill  of  the  great  artist.  So  true 
is  this,  that  the  same  author  has  been  able  to  con¬ 
centrate  what  may  be  called  the  essence  of  his 
bulky  history  into  a  single  volume,  in  which  he  con¬ 
fines  himself  to  the  development  of  the  animating 


308  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

principle  of  his  narrative,  stripped  of  all  the  super¬ 
fluous  accessories,  under  the  significant  title  of 
“  Rise,  Progress,  and  Decline  of  Italian  Freedom.” 

This  embarrassment  has  not  been  easy  to  over¬ 
come  by  the  writers  of  our  Colonial  annals.  The 
first  volume  of  Marshall’s  “  Life  of  Washington”  has 
great  merit  as  a  wise  and  comprehensive  survey  of 
this  early  period,  but  the  plan  is  too  limited  to  af¬ 
ford  room  for  anything  like  a  satisfactory  fulness  of 
detail.  The  most  thorough  work,  and  incompara¬ 
bly  the  best  on  the  subject,  previous  to  the  appear¬ 
ance  of  Mr.  Bancroft’s,  is  the  well-known  history  by 
Mr.  Grahame,  a  truly  valuable  book,  in  which  the 
author,  though  a  foreigner,  has  shown  himself  capa¬ 
ble  of  appreciating  the  motives  and  comprehending 
the  institutions  of  our  Puritan  ancestors.  He  has 
spared  no  pains  in  the  investigation  of  such  original 
sources  as  were  at  his  command,  and  has  conduct¬ 
ed  his  inquiries  with  much  candour,  manifesting 
throughout  the  spirit  of  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman. 
It  is  not  very  creditable  to  his  countrymen  that 
they  should  have  received  his  labours  with  the  apa¬ 
thy  which  he  tells  us  they  have,  amid  the  ocean  of 
contemptible  trash  with  which  their  press  is  daily 
deluged.  But,  in  truth,  the  Colonial  and  Revolu¬ 
tionary  story  of  this  country  is  a  theme  too  ungrate¬ 
ful  to  British  ears  for  us  to  be  astonished  at  any  in¬ 
sensibility  on  this  score. 

Mr.  Grahame’s  work,  however,  with  all  its  merit, 
is  the  work  of  a  foreigner ,  and  that  word  compre¬ 
hends  much  that  cannot  be  overcome  by  the  best 


Bancroft’s  united  states.  309 

writer.  Pie  may  produce  a  beautiful  composition, 
faultless  in  style,  accurate  in  the  delineation  of  prom¬ 
inent  events,  full  of  sound  logic  and  most  wise  con¬ 
clusions,  but  he  cannot  enter  into  the  sympathies, 
comprehend  all  the  minute  feelings,  prejudices,  and 
peculiar  ways  of  thinking  which  form  the  idiosyn¬ 
crasy  of  the  nation.  What  can  he  know  of  these 
who  has  never  been  warmed  by  the  same  sun,  lin¬ 
gered  among  the  same  scenes,  listened  to  the  same 
tales  in  childhood,  been  pledged  to  the  same  inter¬ 
ests  in  manhood  by  which  these  fancies  are  nour¬ 
ished — the  loves,  the  hates,  the  hopes,  the  fears,  that 
go  to  form  national  character?  Write  as  he  will, 
he  is  still  an  alien,  speaking  a  tongue  in  which  the 
nation  will  detect  the  foreign  accent.  He  may  pro¬ 
duce  a  book  without  a  blemish  in  the  eyes  of  for¬ 
eigners  ;  it  may  even  contain  much  for  the  instruc¬ 
tion  of  the  native  that  he  would  not  be  likely  to  find 
in  his  own  literature ;  but  it  will  afford  evidence  on 
every  page  of  its  exotic  origin.  Botta’s  “History  of 
the  War  of  the  Revolution”  is  the  best  treatise  yet. 
compiled  of  that  event.  It  is,  as  every  one  knows, 
a  most  classical  and  able  work,  doing  justice  to  most 
of  the  great  heroes  and  actions  of  the  period ;  but, 
we  will  venture  to  say,  no  well-informed  American 
ever  turned  over  its  leaves  without  feeling  that  the 
writer  was  not  nourished  among  the  men  and  the 
scenes  he  is  painting.  With  all  its  great  merits,  it 
cannot  be,  at  least  for  Americans,  the  history  of  the 
Revolution. 

It  is  the  same  as  in  portrait  painting.  The  artist 


310  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

may  catch  the  prominent  lineaments,  the  complex¬ 
ion,  the  general  air,  the  peculiar  costume  of  his  sub¬ 
ject — all  that  a  stranger’s  eye  will  demand ;  but  he 
must  not  hope,  unless  he  has  had  much  previous  in¬ 
timacy  with  the  sitter,  to  transfer  those  fleeting  shades 
of  expression,  the  almost  imperceptible  play  of  fea¬ 
tures,  which  are  revealed  to  the  eye  of  his  own  family. 

Who  would  think  of  looking  to  a  Frenchman  for 
a  history  of  England  ?  to  an  Englishman  for  the 
best  history  of  France  ?  Ill  fares  it  with  the  nation 
that  cannot  find  writers  of  genius  to  tell  its  own 
story.  What  foreign  hand  could  have  painted,  like 
Herodotus  and  Thucydides,  the  achievements  of  the 
Greeks  ?  Who,  like  Livy  and  T acitus,  have  por¬ 
trayed  the  shifting  character  of  the  Roman,  in  his 
rise,  meridian,  and  decline  ?  Had  the  Greeks  trust¬ 
ed  their  story  to  these  same  Romans,  what  would 
have  been  their  fate  with  posterity?  Let  the  Car¬ 
thaginians  tell.  All  that  remains  of  this  nation,  the 
proud  rival  of  Rome,  who  once  divided  with  her 
the  empire  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  surpassed  her 
in  commerce  and  civilization — nearly  all  that  now 
remains  to  indicate  her  character,  is  a  poor  proverb, 
Punica  Jides,  a  brand  of  infamy  given  by  the  Roman 
historian,  and  one  which  the  Romans  merited  prob¬ 
ably  as  richly  as  the  Carthaginians.  Yet  America, 
it  is  too  true,  must  go  to  Italy  for  the  best  history  of 
the  Revolution,  and  to  Scotland  for  the  best  history 
of  the  Colonies.  Happily,  the  work  before  us  bids 
fair,  when  completed,  to  supply  this  deficiency ;  and 
it  is  quite  time  we  should  turn  to  it. 


BANCROFT  S  UNITED  STATES. 


311 


Mr.  Bancroft’s  first  two  volumes  have  been  too 
long  before  the  public  to  require  anything  to  be  now 
said  of  them.  Indeed,  the  first  has  already  been 
the  subject  of  a  particular  notice  in  this  Journal. 
These  volumes  are  mainly  occupied  with  the  settle¬ 
ment  of  the  country  by  the  different  colonies,  and 
the  institutions  gradually  established  among  them, 
with  a  more  particular  illustration  of  the  remarkable 
features  in  their  character  or  policy. 

In  the  present  volume  the  immediate  point  of 
view  is  somewhat  changed.  It  was  no  longer  ne¬ 
cessary  to  treat  each  of  the  colonies  separately,  and 
a  manifest  advantage  in  respect  to  unity  is  gained  by 
their  being  brought  more  under  one  aspect.  A  more 
prominent  feature  is  gradually  developed  by  the  re¬ 
lations  with  the  mother  country.  This  is  the  mer¬ 
cantile  system,  as  it  is  called  by  economical  writers, 
which  distinguishes  the  colonial  policy  of  modern 
Europe  from  that  of  ancient.  The  great  object  of 
this  system  was  to  get  as  much  profit  from  the  col¬ 
onies,  with  as  little  cost  to  the  mother  country  as 
possible.  The  former,  instead  of  being  regarded  as 
an  integral  part  of  the  empire,  were  held  as  property, 
to  be  dealt  with  for  the  benefit  of  the  proprietors. 
This  was  the  great  object  of  legislation,  almost  the 
sole  one.  The  system,  so  different  from  anything 
known  in  antiquity,  was  introduced  by  the  Span¬ 
iards  and  Portuguese,  and  by  them  carried  to  an  ex¬ 
tent  which  no  other  nation  has  cared  to  follow.  By 
the  most  cruel  and  absurd  system  of  prohibitory  le¬ 
gislation,  their  colonies  were  cut  off  from  intercourse 


312  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

with  all  but  the  parent  country  ;  and,  as  the  latter 
was  unable  to  supply  their  demands  for  even  the 
necessaries  of  life,  an  extensive  contraband  trade 
was  introduced,  which,  without  satisfying  the  wants 
of  the  colonies,  corrupted  their  morals.  It  is  an  old 
story,  and  the  present  generation  has  witnessed  the 
results,  in  the  ruin  of  those  fine  countries  and  the 
final  assertion  of  their  independence,  which  the  de¬ 
graded  condition  in  which  they  have  so  long  been 
held  has  wholly  unfitted  them  to  enjoy. 

The  English  government  was  too  wise  and  liberal 
to  press  thus  heavily  on  its  transatlantic  subjects  ; 
but  the  policy  was  similar,  consisting,  as  is  well 
known,  and  is  ably  delineated  in  these  volumes,  of 
a  long  series  of  restrictive  measures,  tending  to 
cramp  their  free  trade,  manufactures,  and  agriculture, 
and  to  secure  the  commercial  monopoly  of  Great 
Britain.  This  is  the  point  from  which  events  in 
the  present  volume  are  to  be  more  immediately  con¬ 
templated,  all  subordinate,  like  those  in  the  prece¬ 
ding,  to  that  leading  principle  of  a  Republican  ten¬ 
dency —  the  centre  of  attraction,  controlling  the 
movements  of  the  numerous  satellites  in  our  colonial 
system. 

The  introductory  chapter  in  the  volume  opens 
with  a  view  of  the  English  Revolution  in  1688, 
which,  though  not  popular,  is  rightly  characterized 
as  leading  the  way  to  popular  liberty.  Its  great  ob¬ 
ject  was  the  security  of  property ;  and  our  author 
has  traced  its  operation,  in  connexion  with  the  grad¬ 
ual  progress  of  commercial  wealth,  to  give  greater 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


313 


authority  to  the  mercantile  system.  We  select  the 
following  original  sketch  of  the  character  of  William 
the  Third: 

“  The  character  of  the  new  monarch  of  Great 
Britain  could  mould  its  policy,  but  not  its  Constitu¬ 
tion.  True  to  his  purposes,  he  yet  wins  no  sympa¬ 
thy.  In  political  sagacity,  in  force  of  will,  far  supe¬ 
rior  to  the  English  statesmen  who  environed  him  ; 
more  tolerant  than  his  ministers  or  his  Parliaments, 
the  childless  man  seems  like  the  unknown  character 
in  algebra,  which  is  introduced  to  form  the  ecpiation, 
and  dismissed  when  the  problem  is  solved.  In  his 
person  thin  and  feeble,  with  eyes  of  a  hectic  lustre, 
of  a  temperament  inclining  to  the  melancholic,  in 
conduct  cautious,  of  a  self-relying  humour,  with  abi¬ 
ding  impressions  respecting  men,  he  sought  no  fa¬ 
vour,  and  relied  for  success  on  his  own  inflexibility, 
and  the  greatness  and  maturity  of  his  designs.  Too 
wise  to  be  cajoled,  too  firm  to  be  complaisant,  no 
address  could  sway  his  resolve.  In  Holland  he  had 
not  scrupled  to  derive  an  increased  power  from  the 
crimes  of  rioters  and  assassins  ;  in  England,  no  filial 
respect  diminished  the  energy  of  his  ambition.  His 
exterior  was  chilling  ;  yet  he  had  a  passionate  de¬ 
light  in  horses  and  the  chase.  In  conversation  he 
was  abrupt,  speaking  little  and  slowly,  and  with  re¬ 
pulsive  dryness ;  in  the  day  of  battle  he  was  all  ac¬ 
tivity,  and  the  highest  energy  of  life,  without  kin¬ 
dling  his  passions,  animated  his  frame.  His  trust  in 
Providence  was  so  connected  with  faith  in  general 
laws,  that  in  every  action  he  sought  the  principle 

R  R 


314  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

which  should  range  it  on  an  absolute  decree.  Thus, 
unconscious  to  himself,  he  had  sympathy  with  the 
people,  who  always  have  faith  in  Providence.  ‘  Do 
you  dread  death  in  my  company  V  he  cried  to  the 
anxious  sailors,  when  the  ice  on  the  coast  of  Hol¬ 
land  had  almost  crushed  the  boat  that  was  bearing 
him  to  the  shore.  Courage  and  pride  pervaded  the 
reserve  of  the  prince,  who  spurning  an  alliance  with 
a  bastard  daughter  of  Louis  XIV.,  had  made  himself 
the  centre  of  a  gigantic  opposition  to  France.  For 
England,  for  the  English  people,  for  English  liber¬ 
ties,  he  had  no  affection,  indifferently  employing  the 
Whigs,  who  found  their  pride  in  the  Revolution, 
and  the  Tories,  who  had  opposed  his  elevation,  and 
who  yet  were  the  fittest  instruments  ‘to  carry  the 
prerogative  high.’  One  great  passion  had  absorbed 
his  breast — the  independence  of  his  native  country. 
The  harsh  encroachments  of  Louis  XIV.,  which  in 
1672  had  made  William  of  Orange  a  Revolutionary 
stadtholder,  now  assisted  to  constitute  him  a  Revo¬ 
lutionary  king,  transforming  the  impassive  champion 
of  Dutch  independence  into  the  defender  of  the  lib¬ 
erties  of  Europe.” — Vol.  iii.,  p.  2-4. 

The  chapter  proceeds  to  examine  the  relations, 
not  always  of  the  most  friendly  aspect,  between 
England  and  the  colonies,  in  which  Mr.  Bancroft 
pays  a  well-merited  tribute  to  the  enlightened  policy 
of  Penn,  and  the  tranquillity  he  secured  to  his  settle¬ 
ment.  At  the  close  of  the  chapter  is  an  account  of 
that  lamentable — farce,  we  should  have  called  it,  had 
it  not  so  tragic  a  conclusion — the  Salem  witchcraft. 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


315 


Our  author  has  presented  some  very  striking 
sketches  of  these  deplorable  scenes,  in  which  poor 
human  nature  appears  in  as  humiliating  a  plight  as 
would  be  possible  in  a  civilized  country.  The  In¬ 
quisition,  fierce  as  it  was,  and  most  unrelenting  in 
its  persecutions,  had  something  in  it  respectable  in 
comparison  with  this  wretched  and  imbecile  self- 
delusion.  The  historian  does  not  shrink  from  dis¬ 
tributing  his  censure,  in  full  measure,  to  those  to 
whom  he  thinks  it  belongs.  The  erudite  divine, 
Cotton  Mather,  in  particular,  would  feel  little  pleas¬ 
ure  in  the  contemplation  of  the  portrait  sketched  for 
him  on  this  occasion.  Vanity,  according  to  Mr. 
Bancroft,  was  quite  as  active  an  incentive  to  his 
movements  as  religious  zeal  ;  and,  if  he  began 
with  the  latter,  there  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
pride  of  opinion,  an  unwillingness  to  expose  his 
error,  so  humiliating  to  the  world,  perhaps  even  to 
his  own  heart,  were  powerful  stimulants  to  his  con¬ 
tinuing  the  course  he  had  begun,  though  others  fal¬ 
tered  in  it. 

Mr.  Bancroft  has  taken  some  pains  to  show  that 
the  prosecutions  were  conducted  before  magistrates 
not  appointed  by  the  people,  but  the  crown ;  and 
that  a  stop  was  not  put  to  them  till  after  the  meet¬ 
ing  of  the  representatives  of  the  people.  This,  in 
our  view,  is  a  distinction  somewhat  fanciful.  The 
judges  held  their  commissions  from  the  governor ; 
and  if  he  was  appointed  by  the  crown,  it  was,  as 
our  author  admits,  at  the  suggestion  of  Increase 
Mather,  a  minister  of  the  people.  The  accusers, 


316  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

the  witnesses,  the  jurors,  were  all  taken  from  the 
people.  And  when  a  stop  was  put  to  farther  pro¬ 
ceedings  by  the  seasonable  delay  interposed  by  the 
General  Court,  before  the  assembling  of  the  “  legal 
colonial”  tribunal  (thus  giving  time  for  the  illusion 
to  subside),  it  was,  in  part,  from  the  apprehension 
that,  in  the  rising  tide  of  accusation,  no  man,  how¬ 
ever  elevated  might  be  his  character  or  condition, 
would  be  safe. 

In  the  following  chapter,  after  a  full  exposition 
of  the  prominent  features  in  the  system  of  commercial 
monopoly  which  controlled  the  affairs  of  the  colo¬ 
nies,  we  are  introduced  to  the  great  discoveries  in 
the  northern  and  western  regions  of  the  continent, 
made  by  the  Jesuit  missionaries  of  France.  No¬ 
thing  is  more  extraordinary  in  the  history  of  this  re¬ 
markable  order  than  their  bold  enterprise  in  spread¬ 
ing  their  faith  over  this  boundless  wilderness,  in 
defiance  of  the  most  appalling  obstacles  which  man 
and  nature  could  present.  Faith  and  zeal  triumph¬ 
ed  over  all,  and,  combined  with  science  and  the 
spirit  of  adventure,  laid  open  unknown  regions  in 
the  heart  of  this  vast  continent,  then  roamed  over 
by  the  buffalo  and  the  savage,  and  now  alive  with 
the  busy  hum  of  an  industrious  and  civilized  popu¬ 
lation. 

The  historian  has  diligently  traced  the  progress 
of  the  missionaries  in  their  journeys  into  the  west¬ 
ern  territory  of  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Illinois,  down 
the  deep  basin  of  the  Mississippi  to  its  mouth.  He 
has  identified  the  scenes  of  some  striking  events  in 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


317 


the  history  of  discovery,  as,  among  others,  the  place 
where  Marquette  first  met  the  Illinois  tribe,  at  Iowa. 
No  preceding  writer  has  brought  into  view  the  re¬ 
sults  of  these  labours  in  a  compass  which  may  be 
embraced,  as  it  were,  in  a  single  glance.  The 
character  of  this  order,  and  their  fortune,  form  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  objects  for  contemplation  in 
the  history  of  man.  Springing  up,  as  it  were,  to 
prop  the  crumbling  edifice  of  Catholicism  when  it 
was  reeling  under  the  first  shock  of  the  Reforma¬ 
tion,  it  took  up  its  residence,  indifferently,  within 
the  precincts  of  palaces,  or  in  the  boundless  plains 
and  forests  of  the  wilderness ;  held  the  consciences 
of  civilized  monarchs  in  its  keeping,  and  directed 
their  counsels,  while,  at  the  same  time,  it  was  gath¬ 
ering  barbarian  nations  under  its  banners,  and  pour¬ 
ing  the  light  of  civilization  into  the  farthest  and 
darkest  quarters  of  the  globe. 

“  The  establishment  of  ‘  the  Society  of  Jesus/” 
says  Mr.  Bancroft,  “  by  Loyola  had  been  contem¬ 
porary  with  the  Reformation,  of  which  it  was  de¬ 
signed  to  arrest  the  progress,  and  its  complete  or¬ 
ganization  belongs  to  the  period  when  the  first  full 
edition  of  Calvin’s  ‘Institutes’  saw  the  light.  Its 
members  were,  by  its  rules,  never  to  become  prelates, 
and  could  gain  power  and  distinction  only  by  influ¬ 
ence  over  mind.  Their  vows  were  poverty,  chas¬ 
tity,  absolute  obedience,  and  a  constant  readiness  to 
go  on  missions  against  heresy  or  heathenism.  Their 
cloisters  became  the  best  schools  in  the  world. 
Emancipated,  in  a  great  degree,  from  the  forms  of 


318  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

piety,  separated  from  domestic  ties,  constituting  a 
community  essentially  intellectual  as  well  as  essen¬ 
tially  plebeian,  bound  together  by  the  most  perfect 
organization,  and  having  for  their  end  a  control 
over  opinion  among  the  scholars  and  courts  of  Eu¬ 
rope,  and  throughout  the  habitable  globe,  the  order 
of  the  Jesuits  held  as  its  ruling  maxims  the  widest  dif¬ 
fusion  of  its  influence,  and  the  closest  internal  unity. 
Immediately  on  its  institution,  their  missionaries, 
kindling  with  a  heroism  that  defied  every  danger 
and  endured  every  toil,  made  their  way  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth ;  they  raised  the  emblem  of  man’s  sal¬ 
vation  on  the  Moluccas,  in  Japan,  in  India,  in  Thi¬ 
bet,  in  Cochin  China,  and  in  China ;  they  penetra¬ 
ted  Ethiopia,  and  reached  the  Abyssinians  ;  they 
planted  missions  among  the  C  a  fires :  in  California, 
on  the  banks  of  the  Marafdion,  in  the  plains  of  Par¬ 
aguay,  they  invited  the  wildest  of  barbarians  to  the 
civilization  of  Christianity.” 

“Religious  enthusiasm,”  he  adds, “colonized  New- 
England  ;  and  religious  enthusiasm  founded  Mont¬ 
real,  made  a  conquest  of  the  wilderness  on  the  upper 
Lakes,  and  explored  the  Mississippi.  Puritanism 
gave  New-England  its  worship  and  its  schools ;  the 
Roman  Church  created  for  Canada  its  altars,  its 
hospitals,  and  its  seminaries.  The  influence  of 
Calvin  can  be  traced  to  every  New-England  village; 
in  Canada,  the  monuments  of  feudalism  and  the 
Catholic  Church  stand  side  by  side ;  and  the  names 
of  Montmorenci  and  Bourbon,  of  Levi  and  Conde, 
are  mingled  with  memorials  of  St.  Athanasius  and 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


319 


Augustin,  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  and  Ignatius  Lo¬ 
yola.” — Ibid.,  p.  120,  121. 

We  hardly  know  which  to  select  from  the  many 
brilliant  and  spirited  sketches  in  which  this  part  of 
the  story  abounds.  None  has  more  interest,  on  the 
whole,  than  the  discovery  of  the  Mississippi  by  Mar¬ 
quette  and  his  companions,  and  the  first  voyage  of 
the  white  men  down  its  majestic  waters. 

“  Behold,  then,  in  1673,  on  the  tenth  day  of  June, 
the  meek,  single-hearted,  unpretending,  illustrious 
Marquette,  with  Joliet  for  his  associate,  five  French¬ 
men  as  his  companions,  and  two  Algonquins  as 
guides,  lifting  their  two  canoes  on  their  backs,  and 
walking  across  the  narrow  portage  that  divides  the 
Fox  River  from  the  Wisconsin.  They  reach  the 
water-shed  ;  uttering  a  special  prayer  to  the  immac¬ 
ulate  Virgin,  they  leave  the  streams  that,  flowing 
onward,  could  have  borne  their  greetings  to  the 
Castle  of  Quebec ;  already  they  stand  by  the  Wis¬ 
consin.  ‘  The  guides  returned,’  says  the  gentle 
Marquette,  4  leaving  us  alone  in  this  unknown  land, 
in  the  hands  of  Providence.’  France  and  Christian¬ 
ity  stood  in  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi.  Embark¬ 
ing  on  the  broad  Wisconsin,  the  discoverers,  as  they 
sailed  west,  went  solitarily  down  the  stream,  between 
alternate  prairies  and  hill-sides,  beholding  neither 
man  nor  the  wonted  beasts  of  the  forest :  no  sound 
broke  the  appalling  silence  but  the  ripple  of  their 
canoe  and  the  lowing  of  the  buffalo.  In  seven 
days  ‘  they  entered  happily  the  Great  River,  with 
a  joy  that  could  not  be  expressed ;’  and  the  two  birch- 


320  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

bark  canoes,  raising  their  happy  sails  under  new 
skies  and  to  unknown  breezes,  floated  gently  down 
the  calm  magnificence  of  the  ocean  stream,  over  the 
broad,  clear  sandbars,  the  resort  of  innumerable 
water-fowl  —  gliding  past  islands  that  swelled  from 
the  bosom  of  the  stream,  with  their  tufts  of  massive 
thickets,  and  between  the  wide  plains  of  Illinois  and 
Iowa,  all  garlanded  as  they  were  with  majestic  for¬ 
ests,  or  checkered  by  island  grove  and  the  open  vast¬ 
ness  of  the  prairie. 

“  About  sixty  leagues  below  the  mouth  of  the 
Wisconsin,  the  western  bank  of  the  Mississippi  bore 
on  its  sands  the  trail  of  men ;  a  little  footpath  was 
discerned  leading  into  a  beautiful  prairie ;  and,  leav¬ 
ing  the  canoes,  Joliet  and  Marquette  resolved  alone 
to  brave  a  meeting  with  the  savages.  After  walking 
six  miles,  they  beheld  a  village  on  the  banks  of  a 
river,  and  two  others  on  a  slope,  at  a  distance  of  a 
mile  and  a  half  from  the  first.  The  river  was  the 
Mou-in-gou-e-na,  or  Moingona,  of  which  we  have 
corrupted  the  name  into  Des  Moines.  Marquette 
and  Joliet  were  the  first  white  men  who  trod  the 
soil  of  Iowa.  Commending  themselves  to  God,  they 
uttered  a  loud  cry.  The  Indians  hear;  four  old 
men  advance  slowly  to  meet  them,  bearing  the 
peace-pipe  brilliant  with  many-coloured  plumes. 
‘  W e  are  Illinois,’  said  they ;  that  is,  when  transla¬ 
ted,  ‘We  are  men;’  and  they  offered  the  calumet. 
An  aged  chief  received  them  at  his  cabin  with  up¬ 
raised  hands,  exclaiming,  ‘  How  beautiful  is  the  sun, 
Frenchmen,  when  thou  comest  to  visit  us !  Our 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


321 


whole  village  awaits  thee  ;  thou  shalt  enter  in  peace 
into  all  our  dwellings.’  And  the  pilgrims  were  fol¬ 
lowed  by  the  devouring  gaze  of  an  astonished  crowd. 

“  At  the  great  council,  Marquette  published  to 
them  the  one  true  God,  their  creator.  He  spoke, 
also,  of  the  great  captain  of  the  French,  the  Gov¬ 
ernor  of  Canada,  who  had  chastised  the  Five  Na¬ 
tions  and  commanded  peace ;  and  he  questioned 
them  respecting  the  Mississippi  and  the  tribes  that 
possessed  its  banks.  For  the  messengers  who  an¬ 
nounced  the  subjection  of  the  Iroquois,  a  magnificent 
festival  was  prepared  of  hominy,  and  fish,  and  the 
choicest  viands  from  the  prairies. 

“  After  six  days’  delay,  and  invitations  to  new 
visits,  the  chieftain  of  the  tribe,  with  hundreds  of 
warriors,  attended  the  strangers  to  their  canoes;  and, 
selecting  a  peace-pipe  embellished  with  the  head 
and  neck  of  brilliant  birds,  and  all  feathered  over 
with  plumage  of  various  hues,  they  hung  around 
Marquette  the  mysterious  arbiter  of  peace  and  war, 
the  sacred  calumet,  a  safeguard  among  the  nations. 

The  little  group  proceeded  onward.  ‘  I  did  not 
fear  death,’  says  Marquette ;  ‘  I  should  have  esteem¬ 
ed  it  the  greatest  happiness  to  have  died  for  the 
glory  of  God.’  They  passed  the  perpendicular 
rocks,  which  wore  the  appearance  of  monsters;  they 
heard  at  a  distance  the  noise  of  the  waters  of  the 
Missouri,  known  to  them  by  the  Algonquin  name 
of  Pekitanoni ;  and  when  they  came  to  the  most 
beautiful  confluence  of  waters  in  the  world — where 
the  swifter  Missouri  rushes  like  a  conqueror  into  the 

Ss 


322  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

calmer  Mississippi,  dragging  it,  as  it  were,  hastily  to 
the  sea — the  good  Marquette  resolved  in  his  heart, 
anticipating  Lewis  and  Clarke,  one  day  to  ascend 
the  mighty  river  to  its  source ;  to  cross  the  ridge 
that  divides  the  oceans,  and,  descending  a  westerly 
flowing  stream,  to  publish  the  Gospel  to  all  the 
people  of  this  New  World. 

“  In  a  little  less  than  forty  leagues,  the  canoes 
floated  past  the  Ohio,  which  was  then,  and  long  af¬ 
terward,  called  the  Wabash.  Its  banks  were  tenant¬ 
ed  by  numerous  villages  of  the  peaceful  Shawnees, 
who  quailed  under  the  incursions  of  the  Iroquois. 

“  The  thick  canes  begin  to  appear  so  close  and 
strong  that  the  buffalo  could  not  break  through 
them ;  the  insects  become  intolerable ;  as  a  shelter 
against  the  suns  of  July,  the  sails  are  folded  into  an 
awning.  The  prairies  vanish  ;  thick  forests  of 
whitewood,  admirable  for  their  vastness  and  height, 
crowd  even  to  the  skirts  of  the  pebbly  shore.  It  is 
also  observed  that,  in  the  land  of  the  Chickasas,  the 
Indians  have  guns. 

“  Near  the  latitude  of  thirty-three  degrees,  on  the 
western  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  stood  the  village  of 
Mitchigamea,  in  a  region  that  had  not  been  visited 
by  Europeans  since  the  days  of  De  Soto.  ‘  Now,’ 
thought  Marquette,  ‘  we  must  indeed  ask  the  aid  of 
the  Virgin.’  Armed  with  bows  and  arrows,  with 
clubs,  axes,  and  bucklers,  amid  continual  whoops, 
the  natives,  bent  on  war,  embark  in  vast  canoes 
made  out  of  the  trunks  of  hollow  trees ;  but,  at  the 
sight  of  the  mysterious  peace-pipe  held  aloft,  God 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


323 


touched  the  hearts  of  the  old  men,  who  checked  the 
impetuosity  of  the  young,  and,  throwing  their  bows 
and  quivers  into  the  canoes  as  a  token  of  peace, 
they  prepared  a  hospitable  welcome. 

“  The  next  day,  a  long  wooden  canoe,  containing 
ten  men,  escorted  the  discoverers,  for  eight  or  ten 
leagues,  to  the  village  of  Akansea,  the  limit  of  their 
voyage.  They  had  left  the  region  of  the  Algon- 
quins,  and,  in  the  midst  of  the  Sioux  and  Chicasas, 
could  speak  only  by  an  interpreter.  A  half  league 
above  Akansea  they  were  met  by  two  boats,  in  one 
of  which  stood  the  commander,  holding  in  his  hand 
the  peace-pipe,  and  singing  as  he  drew  near.  After 
offering  the  pipe,  he  gave  bread  of  maize.  The 
wealth  of  his  tribe  consisted  in  buffalo-skins ;  their 
weapons  were  axes  of  steel — a  proof  of  commerce 
with  Europeans. 

“  Thus  had  our  travellers  descended  below  the 
entrance  of  the  Arkansas,  to  the  genial  climes  that 
have  almost  no  winter  but  rains,  beyond  the  bound 
of  the  Huron  and  Algonquin  languages,  to  the  vicin¬ 
ity  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  to  tribes  of  Indians 
that  had  obtained  European  arms  by  traffic  with 
Spaniards  or  with  Virginia. 

“  So,  having  spoken  of  God  and  the  mysteries  of 
the  Catholic  faith ;  having  become  certain  that  the 
Father  of  Rivers  went  not  to  the  ocean  east  of  Flor- 
da,  nor  yet  to  the  Gulf  of  California,  Marquette  and 
Joliet  left  Akansea  and  ascended  the  Mississippi. 

“  At  the  thirty-eighth  degree  of  latitude  they  en¬ 
tered  the  River  Illinois,  and  discovered  a  country 


324  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

without  its  paragon  for  the  fertility  of  its  beautiful 
prairies,  covered  with  buffaloes  and  stags  ;  for  the 
loveliness  of  its  rivulets,  and  the  prodigal  abundance 
of  wild  duck  and  swans,  and  of  a  species  of  parrots 
and  wild  turkeys.  The  tribe  of  Illinois,  that  tenant¬ 
ed  its  banks,  entreated  Marquette  to  come  and  reside 
among  them.  One  of  their  chiefs,  with  their  young 
men,  conducted  the  party,  by  way  of  Chicago,  to 
Lake  Michigan ;  and,  before  the  end  of  September, 
all  were  safe  in  Green  Bay. 

“Joliet  returned  to  Quebec  to  announce  the  dis¬ 
covery,  of  which  the  fame,  through  Talon,  quicken¬ 
ed  the  ambition  of  Colbert ;  the  unaspiring  Mar¬ 
quette  remained  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  Mia  mis, 
who  dwelt  in  the  north  of  Illinois,  round  Chicago. 
Two  years  afterward,  sailing  from  Chicago  to  Mack¬ 
inaw,  he  entered  a  little  river  in  Michigan.  Erect¬ 
ing  an  altar,  he  said  mass  after  the  rites  of  the  Cath¬ 
olic  Church ;  then,  begging  the  men  who  conducted 
his  canoe  to  leave  him  alone  for  half  an  hour 

‘  in  the  darkling  wood, 

Amid  the  cool  and  silence,  he  knelt  down, 

And  offered  to  the  Mightiest  solemn  thanks 
And  supplication.’ 

At  the  end  of  the  half  hour  they  went  to  seek  him, 
and  he  was  no  more.  The  good  missionary,  discov¬ 
erer  of  a  world,  had  fallen  asleep  on  the  margin  of 
the  stream  that  bears  his  name.  Near  its  mouth  the 
canoe-men  dug  his  grave  in  the  sand.  Ever  after, 
the  forest  rangers,  if  in  danger  on  Lake  Michigan, 
would  invoke  his  name.  The  people  of  the  West 
will  build  his  monument.” — Ibid.,  p.  157,  1G2. 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


325 


The  list  of  heroic  adventurers  in  the  path  of  dis¬ 
covery  is  closed  by  La  Salle,  the  chivalrous  French¬ 
man  of  whom  we  have  made  particular  record  in  a 
previous  number  of  this  Journal,*  and  whose  tremen¬ 
dous  journey  from  the  Illinois  to  the  French  settle¬ 
ments  in  Canada,  a  distance  of  fifteen  hundred  miles, 
is  also  noticed  by  Mr.  Bancroft.  His  was  the  first 
European  bark  that  emerged  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi ;  and  Mr.  Bancroft,  as  he  notices  the 
event,  and  the  feelings  it  gave  rise  to  in  the  mind  of 
the  discoverer,  gives  utterance  to  his  own  in  language 
truly  sublime : 

“  As  he  raised  the  cross  by  the  Arkansas — as  he 

•/ 

planted  the  arms  of  France  near  the  Gulf  of  Mexi¬ 
co,  he  anticipated  the  future  affluence  of  emigrants, 
and  heard  in  the  distance  the  footsteps  of  the  ad¬ 
vancing  multitude  that  were  coming  to  take  posses¬ 
sion  of  the  valley.” — Ibid.,  p.  168. 

This  descent  of  the  Great  River  our  author  pla¬ 
ces,  without  hesitation,  in  1682,  being  a  year  earlier 
than  the  one  assigned  by  us  in  the  article  referred 
to.f  Mr.  Bancroft  is  so  familiar  with  the  whole 
ground,  and  has  studied  the  subject  so  carefully,  that 
great  weight  is  due  to  his  opinions ;  but  he  has  not 
explained  the  precise  authority  for  his  conclusions 
in  this  particular. 

This  leads  us  to  enlarge  on  what  we  consider  a 
defect  in  our  author’s  present  plan.  His  notes  are 
discarded  altogether,  and  his  references  transferred 

*  See  “North  American  Review,”  vol.  xlviii.,  p.  69,  et  seq. 

+  Ibid.,  p.  84,  85. 


326  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

from  the  bottom  of  the  page  to  the  side  margin. 
This  is  very  objectionable,  not  merely  on  account 
of  the  disagreeable  effect  produced  on  the  eye,  but 
from  the  more  serious  inconvenience  of  want  of  room 
for  very  frequent  and  accurate  reference.  Titles  are 
necessarily  much  abridged,  sometimes  at  the  expense 
of  perspicuity.  The  first  reference  in  this  volume 
is  “  Hallam,  iv.,  374;”  the  second  is  “Archdale.” 
Now  Hallam  has  written  several  works,  published 
in  various  forms  and  editions.  As  to  the  second 
authority,  we  have  no  means  of  identifying  the  pas 
sage  at  all.  This,  however,  is  not  the  habit  of  Mr. 
Bancroft  where  the  fact  is  of  any  great  moment,  and 
his  references  throughout  are  abundant.  But  the 
practice  of  references  in  the  side  margin,  though 
warranted  by  high  authority,  is  unfavourable,  from 
want  of  room,  for  very  frequent  or  very  minute  spe¬ 
cification. 

The  omission  of  notes  we  consider  a  still  greater 
evil.  It  is  true,  they  lead  to  great  abuses,  are  often 
the  vehicle  of  matter  which  should  have  been  incor¬ 
porated  in  the  text,  more  frequently  of  irrelevant 
matter  which  should  not  have  been  admitted  any¬ 
where,  and  thus  exhaust  the  reader’s  patience,  while 
they  spoil  the  effect  of  the  work  by  drawing  the  at¬ 
tention  from  the  continuous  flow  of  the  narrative, 
checking  the  heat  that  is  raised  by  it  in  the  reader’s 
mind,  and  not  unfrequently  jarring  on  his  feelings 
by  some  misplaced  witticism,  or  smart  attempt  at 
one.  For  these  and  the  like  reasons,  many  compe¬ 
tent  critics  have  pronounced  against  the  use  of  notes, 


327 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 

considering  that  a  writer  who  could  not  bring  all  he 
had  to  say  into  the  compass  of  his  text  was  a  bun¬ 
gler.  Gibbon,  who  practised  the  contrary,  intimates 
a  regret  in  one  of  his  letters  that  he  had  been  over¬ 
ruled  so  far  as  to  allow  his  notes  to  be  printed  at 
the  bottom  of  the  page  instead  of  being  removed  to 
the  end  of  the  volume.  But  from  all  this  we  dissent, 
especially  in  reference  to  a  work  of  research  like  the 
present  History.  We  are  often  desirous  here  to 
have  the  assertion  of  the  author,  or  the  sentiment 
quoted  by  him,  if  important,  verified  by  the  original 
extract,  especially  when  this  is  in  a  foreign  language. 
We  want  to  see  the  grounds  of  his  conclusions,  the 
scaffolding  by  which  he  has  raised  his  structure ;  to 
estimate  the  true  value  of  his  authorities ;  to  know 
something  of  their  characters,  positions  in  society, 
and  the  probable  influences  to  which  they  were  ex¬ 
posed.  Where  there  is  contradiction,  we  want  to 
see  it  stated  ;  the  pros  and  the  cons ,  and  the  grounds 
for  rejecting  this  and  admitting  that.  We  want  to 
have  a  reason  for  our  faith,  otherwise  we  are  merely 
led  blindfold.  Our  guide  may  be  an  excellent  guide ; 
he  may  have  travelled  over  the  path  till  it  has  be¬ 
come  a  beaten  track  to  him  ;  but  we  like  to  use  our 
own  eyesight  too,  to  observe  somewhat  for  ourselves, 
and  to  know,  if  possible,  why  he  has  taken  this  par¬ 
ticular  road  in  preference  to  that  which  his  prede¬ 
cessors  have  travelled. 

The  objections  made  to  notes  are  founded  rather 
on  the  abuse  than  the  proper  use  of  them.  Gibbon 
only  wished  to  remove  his  own  to  the  end  of  his 


328  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

volume  ;  though  in  this  we  think  he  erred,  from 
the  difficulty  and  frequent  disappointment  which  the 
reader  must  have  experienced  in  consulting  them — 
a  disappointment  of  little  moment  when  unattended 
by  difficulty.  But  Gibbon  knew  too  well  the  worth 
of  this  part  of  his  labours  to  him  to  wish  to  discard 
them  altogether.  He  knew  his  reputation  stood  on 
them  as  intimately  as  on  his  narrative.  Indeed, 
they  supply  a  body  of  criticism,  and  well-selected, 
well-digested  learning,  which  of  itself  would  make 
the  reputation  of  any  scholar.  Many  accomplished 
writers,  however,  and  Mr.  Bancroft  among  the  num¬ 
ber,  have  come  to  a  different  conclusion  ;  and  he 
has  formed  his,  probably,  with  deliberation,  having 
made  the  experiment  in  both  forms. 

It  is  true,  the  fulness  of  the  extracts  from  original 
sources  with  which  his  text  is  inlaid,  giving  such 
life  and  presence  to  it,  and  the  frequency  of  his  ref¬ 
erences,  supersede  much  of  the  necessity  of  notes. 
We  should  have  been  very  glad  of  one,  however,  of 
the  kind  we  are  speaking  of,  at  the  close  of  his  ex¬ 
pedition  of  La  Salle. 

We  have  no  room  for  the  discussion  of  the  topics 
in  the  next  chapter,  relating  to  the  hostilities  for  the 
acquisition  of  colonial  territory  between  France  and 
England,  each  of  them  pledged  to  the  same  system 
of  commercial  monopoly,  but  must  pass  to  the  au¬ 
thor’s  account  of  the  Aborigines  east  of  the  Missis¬ 
sippi.  In  this  division  of  his  subject  he  brings  into 
view  the  geographical  positions  of  the  numerous 
tribes,  their  languages,  social  institutions,  religious 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


329 


faith,  and  probable  origin.  All  these  copious  topics 
are  brought  within  the  compass  of  a  hundred  pages  ; 
arranged  with  great  harmony,  and  exhibited  with 
perspicuity  and  singular  richness  of  expression.  It 
is,  on  the  whole,  the  most  elaborate  and  finished 
portion  of  the  volume. 

His  remarks  on  the  localities  of  the  tribes,  instead 
of  a  barren  muster-roll  of  names,  are  constantly  en¬ 
livened  by  picturesque  details  connected  with  their 
situation.  His  strictures  on  their  various  languages 
are  conceived  in  a  philosophical  spirit.  The  subject 
is  one  that  has  already  employed  the  pens  of  the 
ablest  philologists  in  this  country,  among  whom  it  is 
only  necessary  to  mention  the  names  of  Du  Pon¬ 
ceau,  Pickering,  and  Gallatin.  Our  author  has  evi¬ 
dently  bestowed  much  labour  and  thought  on  the 
topic.  He  examines  the  peculiar  structure  of  the 
languages,  which,  though  radically  different,  bear  a 
common  resemblance  in  their  compounded  and  syn¬ 
thetic  organization.  He  has  omitted  to  notice  the 
singular  exception  to  the  polysynthetic  formation  of 
the  Indian  languages  presented  by  the  Otomie, 
which  has  afforded  a  Mexican  philologist  so  ingeni¬ 
ous  a  parallel,  in  its  structure,  with  the  Chinese.  Mr. 
Bancroft  concludes  his  review  of  them  by  admitting 
the  copiousness  of  their  combinations,  and  by  infer¬ 
ring  that  this  copiousness  is  no  evidence  of  care  and 
cultivation,  but  the  elementary  form  of  expression  of 
a  rude  and  uncivilized  people  ;  in  proof  of  which,  he 
cites  the  example  of  the  partially  civilized  Indian  in 
accommodating  his  idiom  gradually  to  the  analytic 

T  T 


330  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

structure  of  the  European  languages.  May  not  this 
be  explained  by  the  circumstance  that  the  influence 
under  which  he  makes  this,  like  his  other  changes, 
is  itself  European  ?  But  we  pass  to  a  more  popular 
theme,  the  religious  faith  of  the  red  man,  whose  fan¬ 
ciful  superstitions  are  depicted  by  our  author  with 
highly  poetical  colouring. 

“  The  red  man,  unaccustomed  to  generalization, 
obtained  no  conception  of  an  absolute  substance,  of 
a  self-existent  being,  but  saw  a  divinity  in  every 
power.  Wherever  there  was  being,  motion,  or  ac¬ 
tion,  there  to  him  was  a  spirit ;  and,  in  a  special 
manner,  wherever  there  appeared  singular  excellence 
among  beasts,  or  birds,  or  in  the  creation,  there  to 
him  was  the  presence  of  a  divinity.  When  he  feels 
his  pulse  throb  or  his  heart  beat,  he  knows  that  it 
is  a  spirit.  A  god  resides  in  the  flint,  to  give  forth 
the  kindling,  cheering  fire  ;  a  spirit  resides  in  the 
mountain  cliff ;  a  spirit  makes  its  abode  in  the  cool 
recesses  of  the  grottoes  which  nature  has  adorned ; 
a  god  dwells  in  each  ‘  little  grass’  that  springs  mi¬ 
raculously  from  the  earth.  ‘  The  woods,  the  wilds, 
and  the  waters  respond  to  savage  intelligence ;  the 
stars  and  the  mountains  live  ;  the  river,  and  the  lake, 
and  the  waves  have  a  spirit.’  Every  hidden  agen¬ 
cy,  every  mysterious  influence,  is  personified.  A 
god  dwells  in  the  sun,  and  in  the  moon,  and  in  the 
firmament ;  the  spirit  of  the  morning  reddens  in  the 
eastern  sky ;  a  deity  is  present  in  the  ocean  and  in 
the  fire;  the  crag  that  overhangs  the  river  has  its 
genius;  there  is  a  spirit  to  the  waterfall;  a  house- 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


331 


hold  god  dwells  in  the  Indian’s  wigwam,  and  conse¬ 
crates  his  home ;  spirits  climb  upon  the  forehead  to 
weigh  down  the  eyelids  in  sleep.  Not  the  heaven¬ 
ly  bodies  only,  the  sky  is  filled  with  spirits  that  min¬ 
ister  to  man.  T o  the  savage,  divinity,  broken,  as  it 
were,  into  an  infinite  number  of  fragments,  fills  all 
place  and  all  being.  The  idea  of  unity  in  the  crea¬ 
tion  may  exist  contemporaneously,  but  it  existed 
only  in  the  germ,  or  as  a  vague  belief  derived  from 
the  harmony  of  the  universe.  Yet  faith  in  the  Great 
Spirit,  when  once  presented,  was  promptly  seized 
and  appropriated,  and  so  infused  itself  into  the  heart 
of  remotest  tribes,  that  it  came  to  be  often  consider¬ 
ed  as  a  portion  of  their  original  faith.  Their  shad¬ 
owy  aspirations  and  creeds  assumed,  through  the  re¬ 
ports  of  missionaries,  a  more  complete  development, 
and  a  religious  system  was  elicited  from  the  preg¬ 
nant  but  rude  materials.” — Ibid.,  p.  285,  286. 

The  following  pictures  of  the  fate  of  the  Indian 
infant,  and  the  shadowy  pleasures  of  the  land  of 
spirits,  have  also  much  tenderness  and  beauty  : 

“  The  same  motive  prompted  them  to  bury  with 
the  warrior  his  pipe  and  his  manitou,  his  tomahawk, 
quiver,  and  bow  ready  bent  for  action,  and  his  most 
splendid  apparel ;  to  place  by  his  side  his  bowl,  his 
maize,  and  his  venison,  for  the  long  journey  to  the 
country  of  his  ancestors.  Festivals  in  honour  of 
the  dead  were  also  frequent,  when  a  part  of  the  food 
was  given  to  the  flames,  that  so  it  might  serve  to 
nourish  the  departed.  The  traveller  would  find  in 
the  forests  a  dead  body  placed  on  a  scaffold  erected 


332  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

upon  piles,  carefully  wrapped  in  bark  for  its  shroud, 
and  attired  in  warmest  furs.  If  a  mother  lost  her 
babe,  she  would  cover  it  with  bark,  and  envelop  it 
anxiously  in  the  softest  beaver-skins ;  at  the  burial- 
place  she  would  put  by  its  side  its  cradle,  its  beads, 
and  its  rattles ;  and,  as  a  last  service  of  maternal 
love,  would  draw  milk  from  her  bosom  in  a  cup  of 
bark,  and  burn  it  in  the  fire,  that  her  infant  might  still 
find  nourishment  on  its  solitary  journey  to  the  land 
of  shades.  Yet  the  newborn  babe  would  be  buried, 
not,  as  usual,  on  a  scaffold,  but  by  the  wayside,  that 
so  its  spirit  might  secretly  steal  into  the  bosom  of 
some  passing  matron,  and  be  born  again  under  hap¬ 
pier  auspices.  On  burying  her  daughter,  the  Chip¬ 
pewa  mother  adds,  not  snow-shoes,  and  beads,  and 
moccasins  only,  but  (sad  emblem  of  woman’s  lot  in 
the  wilderness !)  the  carrying-belt  and  the  paddle. 
‘I  know  my  daughter  will  be  restored  to  me,’  she 
once  said,  as  she  clipped  a  lock  of  hair  as  a  memo¬ 
rial  ;  ‘  by  this  lock  of  hair  I  shall  discover  her,  for  I 
shall  take  it  with  me ;’  alluding  to  the  day  when 
she  too,  with  her  carrying-belt  and  paddle,  and  the 
little  relic  of  her  child,  should  pass  through  the  grave 
to  the  dwelling-place  of  her  ancestors.” 

“  The  faith,  as  well  as  the  sympathies  of  the  sav¬ 
age,  descended  also  to  inferior  things.  Of  each  kind 
of  animal  they  say  there  exists  one,  the  source  and 
origin  of  all,  of  a  vast  size,  the  type  and  original  of 
the  whole  class.  From  the  immense  invisible  bea¬ 
ver  come  all  the  beavers,  by  whatever  run  of  water 
they  are  found  ;  the  same  is  true  of  the  elk  and  buf- 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


333 


falo,  of  the  eagle  and  robin,  of  the  meanest  quadru¬ 
ped  of  the  forest,  of  the  smallest  insect  that  buzzes 
in  the  air.  There  lives  for  each  class  of  animals 
this  invisible,  vast  type,  or  elder  brother.  Thus  the 
savage  established  his  right  to  be  classed  by  philoso¬ 
phers  in  the  rank  of  Realists,  and  his  chief  effort  at 
generalization  was  a  reverent  exercise  of  the  religious 
sentiment.  Where  these  older  brothers  dwell  they 
do  not  exactly  know  ;  yet  it  may  be  that  the  giant 
manitous,  which  are  brothers  to  beasts,  are  hid  be¬ 
neath  the  waters,  and  that  those  of  the  birds  make 
their  homes  in  the  blue  sky.  But  the  Indian  be¬ 
lieves  also,  of  each  individual  animal,  that  it  possess¬ 
es  the  mysterious,  the  indestructible  principle  of 
life  ;  there  is  not  a  breathing  thing  but  has  its  shade, 
which  never  can  perish.  Regarding  himself,  in  com¬ 
parison  with  other  animals,  but  as  the  first  among 
co-ordinate  existences,  he  respects  the  brute  creation, 
and  assigns  to  it,  as  to  himself,  a  perpetuity  of  being. 
‘  The  ancients  of  these  lands  believed  that  the  war¬ 
rior,  when  released  from  life,  renews  the  passions  and 
activity  of  this  world  ;  is  seated  once  more  among 
his  friends  ;  shares  again  the  joyous  feast ;  walks 
through  shadowy  forests,  that  are  alive  with  the  spir¬ 
its  of  birds  ;  and  there,  in  his  paradise, 

“  ‘  By  midnight  moons,  o’er  moistening  dews, 

In  vestments  for  the  chase  arrayed, 

The  hunter  still  the  deer  pursues — 

The  hunter  and  the  deer  a  shade.’  ” 

Ibid.,  p.  295,  298. 

At  the  close  of  this  chapter  the  historian  grapples 
with  the  much-vexed  question  respecting  the  origin 


334  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

of  the  Aborigines — that  pons  asinorum  which  has 
called  forth  so  much  sense  and  nonsense  on  both 
sides  of  the  water,  and  will  continue  to  do  so  as 
long  as  a  new  relic  or  unknown  hieroglyphic  shall 
turn  up  to  irritate  the  nerves  of  the  antiquary. 

Mr.  Bancroft  passes  briefly  in  review  the  several 
arguments  adduced  in  favour  of  the  connexion  with 
Eastern  Asia.  He  lays  no  stress  on  the  affinity  of 
languages,  or  of  customs  and  religious  notions,  con¬ 
sidering  these  as  spontaneous  expressions  of  similar 
ideas  and  wants  in  similar  conditions  of  society. 
He  attaches  as  little  value  to  the  resemblance  estab¬ 
lished  by  Humboldt  between  the  signs  of  the  Mex¬ 
ican  calendar  and  those  of  the  signs  of  the  zodiac  in 
Thibet  and  Tartary  ;  and  as  for  the  far-famed  Digh- 
ton  Rock,  and  the  learned  lucubrations  thereon,  he 
sets  them  down  as  so  much  moonshine,  pronouncing 
the  characters  Algonquin.  The  tumuli — the  great 
tumuli  of  the  West — he  regards  as  the  work  of  no 
mortal  hand,  except  so  far  as  they  have  been  exca¬ 
vated  for  a  sepulchral  purpose.  He  admits,  howev¬ 
er,  vestiges  of  a  migratory  movement  on  our  conti¬ 
nent,  from  the  northeast  to  the  southwest ;  shows 
very  satisfactorily,  by  estimating  the  distances  of  the 
intervening  islands,  the  practicability  of  a  passage  in 
the  most  ordinary  sea-boat  from  the  Asiatic  to  the 
American  shores  in  the  high  latitudes;  and,  by  a 
comparison  of  the  Indian  and  Mongolian  sculls, 
comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the  two  races  are  prob¬ 
ably  identical  in  origin.  But  the  epoch  of  their  di¬ 
vergence  he  places  at  so  remote  a  period,  that  the 


BANCROFT  S  UNITED  STATES. 


335 


peculiar  habits,  institutions,  and  culture  of  the  Abo¬ 
rigines  must  he  regarded  as  all  their  own — as  indi¬ 
genous.  This  is  the  outline  of  his  theory. 

By  this  hypothesis  he  extricates  the  question  from 
the  embarrassment  caused  by  the  ignorance  which 
the  Aborigines  have  manifested  in  the  use  of  iron  and 
milk,  known  to  the  Mongol  hordes,  but  which  he,  of 
course,  supposes  were  not  known  at  the  time  of  the 
migration.  This  is  carrying  the  exodus  back  to  a 
far  period.  But  the  real  objection  seems  to  be  that, 
by  thus  rejecting  all  evidence  of  communication  but 
that  founded  on  anatomical  resemblance,  he  has  un¬ 
necessarily  narrowed  the  basis  on  which  it  rests. 
The  resemblance  between  a  few  specimens  of  Mon¬ 
golian  and  American  sculls  is  a  narrow  basis  in¬ 
deed,  taken  as  the  only  one,  for  so  momentous  a 

In  fact,  this  particular  point  of  analogy  does  not 
strike  us  as  by  any  means  the  most  powerful  of  the 
arguments  in  favour  of  a  communication  with  the 
East,  when  we  consider  the  small  number  of  the 
specimens  on  which  it  is  founded,  the  great  variety 
of  formation  in  individuals  of  the  same  family — some 
of  the  specimens  approaching  even  nearer  to  the 
Caucasian  than  the  Mongolian — and  the  very  uni¬ 
form  deviation  from  the  latter  in  the  prominence  and 
the  greater  angularity  of  the  features. 

This  connexion  with  the  East  derives,  in  our  judg¬ 
ment,  some  support,  feeble  though  it  be,  from  affini¬ 
ties  of  language  ;  but  this  is  a  held  which  remains  to 
be  much  more  fully  explored.  The  analogy  is  much 


336  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

more  striking  of  certain  usages  and  institutions,  par¬ 
ticularly  of  a  religious  character,  and,  above  all,  the 
mythological  traditions  which  those  who  have  had 
occasion  to  look  into  the  Aztec  antiquities  cannot 
fail  to  be  struck  with.  This  resemblance  is  often¬ 
times  in  matters  so  purely  arbitrary,  that  it  can  hard¬ 
ly  be  regarded  as  founded  in  the  constitution  of  man ; 
so  very  exact  that  it  can  scarcely  be  considered  as 
accidental.  We  give  up  the  Dighton  Rock,  that 
rock  of  offence  to  so  many  antiquaries,  who  may 
read  in  it  the  hand-writing  of  the  Phoenicians, 
Egyptians,  or  Scandinavians,  quite  as  well  as  any¬ 
thing  else.  Indeed,  the  various  fac  similes  of  it, 
made  for  the  benefit  of  the  learned,  are  so  different 
from  one  another,  that,  like  Sir  Hudibras,  one  may 
find  in  it 

“  A  leash  oflanguages  at  once.” 

We  are  agreed  with  our  author  that  it  is  very  good 
Algonquin.  But  the  zodiac,  the  Tartar  zodiac, 
which  M.  de  Humboldt  has  so  well  shown  to  re¬ 
semble,  in  its  terms,  those  of  the  Aztec  calendar, 
we  cannot  so  easily  surrender.  The  striking  coin¬ 
cidence  established  by  his  investigations  between 
the  astronomical  signs  of  the  two  nations  —  in  a 
similar  corresponding  series,  moreover,  although  ap¬ 
plied  to  different  uses — is,  in  our  opinion,  one  of 
the  most  powerful  arguments  yet  adduced  for  the 
affinity  of  the  two  races.  Nor  is  Mr.  Bancroft 
wholly  right  in  supposing  that  the  Asiatic  hiero¬ 
glyphics  referred  only  to  the  zodiac.  Like  the 
Mexican,  they  also  presided  over  the  years,  days, 


Bancroft’s  united  states. 


337 


and  even  hours.  The  strength  of  evidence,  founded 
on  numerous  analogies,  cannot  be  shown  without 
going  into  details,  for  which  there  is  scarce  room  in 
the  compass  of  a  separate  article,  much  less  in  the 
heel  of  one.  Whichever  way  we  turn,  the  subject 
is  full  of  perplexity.  It  is  the  sphinx’s  riddle,  and 
the  CEdipus  must  be  called  from  the  grave  who  is 
to  solve  it. 

In  closing  our  remarks,  we  must  express  our  sat¬ 
isfaction  that  the  favourable  notice  we  took  of  Mr. 
Bancroft’s  labours  on  his  first  appearance  has  been 
fully  ratified  by  his  countrymen,  and  that  his  Colo¬ 
nial  History  establishes  his  title  to  a  place  among 
the  great  historical  writers  of  the  age.  The  reader 
will  find  the  pages  of  the  present  volume  filled  with 
matter  not  less  interesting  and  important  than  the 
preceding.  He  will  meet  with  the  same  brilliant 
and  daring  style,  the  same  picturesque  sketches  of 
character  and  incident,  the  same  acute  reasoning 
and  compass  of  erudition. 

In  the  delineation  of  events  Mr.  Bancroft  has 
been  guided  by  the  spirit  of  historic  faith.  Not  that 
it  would  be  difficult  to  discern  the  colour  of  his  pol¬ 
itics;  nor,  indeed,  would  it  be  possible  for  any  one 
strongly  pledged  to  any  set  of  principles,  whether  in 
politics  or  religion,  to  disguise  them  in  the  discussion 
of  abstract  topics,  without  being  false  to  himself,  and 
giving  a  false  tone  to  the  picture ;  but,  while  he  is 
true  to  himself,  he  has  an  equally  imperative  duty 
to  perform — to  be  true  to  others,  to  those  on  whose 
characters  and  conduct  he  sits  in  judgment  as  a  his- 

U  u 


338  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

torian.  No  pet  theory  nor  party  predilections  can 
justify  him  in  swerving  one  hair’s-breadth  from  truth 
in  his  delineation  of  the  mighty  dead,  whose  por¬ 
traits  he  is  exhibiting  to  us  on  the  canvass  of  history. 

Whenever  religion  is  introduced,  Mr.  Bancroft 
has  shown  a  commendable  spirit  of  liberality.  Cath¬ 
olics  and  Calvinists,  Jesuits,  Quakers,  and  Church- 
of-England  men,  are  all  judged  according  to  their 
deeds,  and  not  their  speculative  tenets ;  and  even  in 
the  latter  particular  he  generally  contrives  to  find 
something  deserving  of  admiration,  some  commend¬ 
able  doctrine  or  aspiration  in  most  of  them.  And 
what  Christian  sect — we  might  add,  what  sect  of  any 
denomination — is  there  which  has  not  some  beauty 
of  doctrine  to  admire  ?  Religion  is  the  homage  of 
man  to  his  Creator.  The  forms  in  which  it  is  ex¬ 
pressed  are  infinitely  various  ;  but  they  flow  from 
the  same  source,  are  directed  to  the  same  end,  and 
all  claim  from  the  historian  the  benefit  of  toleration. 

What  Mr.  Bancroft  has  done  for  the  Colonial  his¬ 
tory  is,  after  all,  but  preparation  for  a  richer  theme, 
the  history  of  the  War  of  Independence;  a  subject 
which  finds  its  origin  in  the  remote  past,  its  results 
in  the  infinite  future ;  which  finds  a  central  point  of 
unity  in  the  ennobling  principle  of  independence, 
that  gives  dignity  and  grandeur  to  the  most  petty 
details  of  the  conflict,  and  which  has  its  foreground 
occupied  by  a  single  character,  to  which  all  others 
converge  as  to  a  centre — the  character  of  Washing¬ 
ton,  in  war,  in  peace,  and  in  private  life  the  most 
sublime  on  historical  record.  Happy  the  writer  who 


Bancroft’s  united  states 


33S 


shall  exhibit  this  theme  worthily  to  the  eyes  of  his 
countrymen ! 

The  subject,  it  is  understood,  is  to  engage  the 
attention,  also,  of  Mr.  Sparks,  whose  honourable 
labours  have  already  associated  his  name  imperish- 
ably  with  our  Revolutionary  period.  Let  it  not  be 
feared  that  there  is  not  compass  enough  in  the  sub¬ 
ject  for  two  minds  so  gifted.  The  field  is  too  rich 
to  be  exhausted  by  a  single  crop,  and  will  yield 
fresh  laurels  to  the  skilful  hand  that  shall  toil  for 
them.  The  labours  of  Hume  did  not  supersede 
those  of  Lingard,  or  Turner,  or  Mackintosh,  or 
Hallam.  The  history  of  the  English  Revolution 
has  called  forth,  in  our  own  time,  the  admirable  es¬ 
says  of  Mackintosh  and  Guizot ;  and  the  palm  of 
excellence,  after  the  libraries  that  have  been  written 
on  the  French  Revolution,  has  just  been  assigned  to 
the  dissimilar  histories  of  Mignet  and  Thiers.  The 
points  of  view  under  which  a  thing  may  be  contem¬ 
plated  are  as  diversified  as  mind  itself.  The  most 
honest  inquirers  after  truth  rarely  come  to  precisely 
the  same  results,  such  is  the  influence  of  education, 
prejudice,  principle.  Truth,  indeed,  is  single,  but 
opinions  are  infinitely  various,  and  it  is  only  by  com¬ 
paring  these  opinions  together  that  we  can  hope  to 
ascertain  what  is  truth. 


340  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


MADAME  CALDERON’S  LIFE  IN  MEXICO.* 

JANUARY,  1843. 

In  the  present  age  of  high  literary  activity,  trav¬ 
ellers  make  not  the  least  importunate  demands  on 
public  attention,  and  their  lucubrations,  under  what¬ 
ever  name — Rambles,  Notices,  Incidents,  Pencillings 
— are  nearly  as  important  a  staple  for  the  “  trade”  as 
novels  and  romances.  A  book  of  travels,  formerly, 
was  a  very  serious  affair.  The  traveller  set  out  on 
his  distant  journey  with  many  a  solemn  preparation, 
made  his  will,  and  bade  adieu  to  his  friends  like  one 
who  might  not  again  return.  If  he  did  return,  the 
results  were  imbodied  in  a  respectable  folio,  or  at 
least  quarto,  well  garnished  with  cuts,  and  done  up 
in  a  solid  form,  which  argued  that  it  was  no  fugitive 
publication,  but  destined  for  posterity. 

All  this  is  changed.  The  voyager  nowadays 
leaves  home  with  as  little  ceremony  and  leave-ta¬ 
king  as  if  it  were  for  a  morning’s  drive.  He  steps 
into  the  bark  that  is  to  carrv  him  across  thousands 
of  miles  of  ocean  with  the  moral  certainty  of  re¬ 
turning  in  a  fixed  week,  almost  at  a  particular  day. 
Parties  of  gentlemen  and  ladies  go  whizzing  along 
in  their  steamships  over  the  track  which  cost  so 
many  weary  days  to  the  Argonauts  of  old,  and  run 
over  the  choicest  scenes  of  classic  antiquity,  scatter- 

*  “Life  in  Mexico,  during  a  Residence  of  Two  Years  in  that  Country. 

By  Madame  C -  de  la  B - .”  Boston  :  Little  and  Brown.  Two 

volumes,  12mo. 


madame  Calderon’s  life  in  Mexico.  341 

ed  through  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa,  in  less  time 
than  it  formerly  took  to  go  from  one  end  of  the  Brit¬ 
ish  isles  to  the  other.  The  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  so 
long  the  great  stumbling-block  to  the  navigators  of 
Europe,  is  doubled,  or  the  Red  Sea  coasted,  in  the 
same  way,  by  the  fashionable  tourist — who  glides 
along  the  shores  of  Arabia,  Persia,  Afghanistan,  Bom¬ 
bay,  and  Hindostan,  farther  than  the  farthest  limits 
of  Alexander’s  conquests — before  the  last  leaves  of 
the  last  new  novel  which  he  has  taken  by  the  way 

are  fairlv  cut.  The  facilities  of  communication 
«/ 

have,  in  fact,  so  abridged  distances,  that  geography, 
as  we  have  hitherto  studied  it,  may  be  said  to  be 
entirely  reformed.  Instead  of  leagues,  we  now  com¬ 
pute  by  hours,  and  we  find  ourselves  next-door 
neighbours  to  those  whom  we  had  looked  upon  as 
at  the  antipodes. 

The  consequence  of  these  improvements  in  the 
means  of  intercourse  is,  that  all  the  world  goes 
abroad,  or,  at  least,  one  half  is  turned  upon  the  oth¬ 
er.  Nations  are  so  mixed  up  by  this  process  that 
they  are  in  some  danger  of  losing  their  idiosyncrasy  ; 
and  the  Egyptian  and  the  Turk,  though  they  still 
cling  to  their  religion,  are  becoming  European  in 
their  notions  and  habits  more  and  more  every  day. 

The  taste  for  pilgrimage,  however,  it  must  be 
owned,  does  not  stop  with  the  countries  where  it 
can  be  carried  on  with  such  increased  facility.  It 
has  begotten  a  nobler  spirit  of  adventure,  something 
akin  to  what  existed  in  the  fifteenth  century,  when 
the  world  was  new,  or  newly  discovering,  and  a 


342  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

navigator  who  did  not  take  in  sail,  like  the  cautious 
seamen  of  Knickerbocker,  might  run  down  some 
strange  continent  in  the  dark ;  for,  in  these  times 
of  dandy  tourists  and  travel-mongers,  the  boldest 
achievements,  that  have  hitherto  defied  the  most  ad¬ 
venturous  spirits,  have  been  performed :  the  Him- 
maleh  Mountains  have  been  scaled,  the  Niger  as¬ 
cended,  the  burning  heart  of  Africa  penetrated,  the 
icy  Arctic  and  Antarctic  explored,  and  the  myste¬ 
rious  monuments  of  the  semi-civilized  races  of  Cen¬ 
tral  America  have  been  thrown  open  to  the  public 
gaze.  It  is  certain  that  this  is  a  high-pressure  age, 
and  every  department  of  science  and  letters,  phys¬ 
ical  and  mental,  feels  its  stimulating  influence. 

No  nation,  on  the  whole,  has  contributed  so  large¬ 
ly  to  these  itinerant  expeditions  as  the  English. 
Uneasy,  it  would  seem,  at  being  cooped  up  in  their 
little  isle,  they  sally  forth  in  all  directions,  swarming 
over  the  cultivated  and  luxurious  countries  of  the 
neighbouring  continent,  or  sending  out  stragglers  on 
other  more  distant  and  formidable  missions.  Wheth¬ 
er  it  be  that  their  soaring  spirits  are  impatient  of 
the  narrow  quarters  which  nature  has  assigned  them, 
or  that  there  exists  a  supernumerary  class  of  idlers, 
who,  wearied  with  the  monotony  of  home,  and  the 
same  dull  round  of  dissipation,  seek  excitement  in 
strange  scenes  and  adventures ;  or  whether  they  go 
abroad  for  the  sunshine,  of  which  they  have  heard 
so  much  but  seen  so  little — whatever  be  the  cause, 
they  furnish  a  far  greater  number  of  tourists  than*  all 
the  world  besides.  We  Americans,  indeed,  may 


madame  Calderon’s  life  in  Mexico.  343 

compete  with  them  in  mere  locomotion,  for  our  fa¬ 
miliarity  with  magnificent  distances  at  home  makes 
us  still  more  indifferent  to  them  abroad  ;  but  this 
locomotion  is  generally  in  the  way  of  business,  and 
the  result  is  rarely  shown  in  a  book,  unless,  indeed, 
it  be  the  leger. 

Yet  John  Bull  is,  on  many  accounts,  less  fitted 
than  most  of  his  neighbours  for  the  duties  of  a  trav- 
eller.  However  warm  and  hospitable  in  his  own 
home,  he  has  a  cold  reserve  in  his  exterior,  a  cer¬ 
tain  chilling  atmosphere,  which  he  carries  along 
with  him,  that  freezes  up  the  sympathies  of  stran¬ 
gers,  and  which  is  only  to  be  completely  thawed  by 
long  and  intimate  acquaintance.  But  the  traveller 
has  no  time  for  intimate  acquaintances.  He  must 
go  forward,  and  trust  to  his  first  impressions,  for 
they  will  also  be  his  last.  Unluckily,  it  rarely  falls 
out  that  the  first  impressions  of  honest  John  are  very 
favourable.  There  is  too  much  pride,  not  to  say 
hauteur ,  in  his  composition,  which,  with  the  best  in¬ 
tentions  in  the  world,  will  show  itself  in  a  way  not 
particularly  flattering  to  those  who  come  in  contact 
with  him.  He  goes  through  a  strange  nation,  tread¬ 
ing  on  all  their  little  irritable  prejudices,  shocking 
their  self-love  and  harmless  vanities — in  short,  going 
against  the  grain,  and  roughing  up  everything  by 
taking  it  the  wrong  way.  Thus  he  draws  out  the 
bad  humours  of  the  people  among  whom  he  moves, 
sees  them  in  their  most  unamiable  and  by  no  means 
natural  aspect — in  short,  looks  on  the  wrong  side 
of  the  tapestry.  What  wonder  if  his  notions  are 


344  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

somewhat  awry  as  to  what  he  sees!  There  are,  it 
is  true,  distinguished  exceptions  to  all  this:  English 
travellers,  who  cover  the  warm  heart — as  warm  as 
it  is  generally  true  and  manly — under  a  kind  and 
sometimes  cordial  manner ;  but  they  are  the  ex¬ 
ceptions.  The  Englishman  undoubtedly  appears 
best  on  his  own  soil,  where  his  national  predilections 
and  prejudices,  or,  at  least,  the  intimation  of  them, 
are  somewhat  mitigated  in  deference  to  his  guest. 

Another  source  of  the  disqualification  of  John  Bull 
as  a  calm  and  philosophic  traveller  is  the  manner 
in  which  he  has  been  educated  at  home ;  the  soft 
luxuries  by  which  he  has  been  surrounded  from  his 
cradle  have  made  luxuries  necessaries,  and,  accus¬ 
tomed  to  perceive  all  the  machinery  of  life  glide 
along  as  noiselessly  and  as  swiftly  as  the  foot  of 
Time  itself,  he  becomes  morbidly  sensitive  to  every 
temporary  jar  or  derangement  in  the  working  of  it. 
In  no  country,  since  the  world  was  made,  have  all 
the  appliances  for  mere  physical,  and,  we  may  add, 
intellectual  indulgence,  been  carried  to  such  perfec¬ 
tion  as  in  this  little  island  nucleus  of  civilization. 
Nowhere  can  a  man  get  such  returns  for  his  outlay. 
The  whole  organization  of  society  is  arranged  so  as 
to  minister  to  the  comforts  of  the  wealthy ;  and  an 
Englishman,  with  the  golden  talisman  in  his  pocket, 
can  bring  about  him  genii  to  do  his  bidding,  and 
transport  himself  over  distances  with  a  thought,  al¬ 
most  as  easy  as  if  he  were  the  possessor  of  Aladdin’s 
magic  lamp,  and  the  fairy  carpet  of  the  Arabian 
Tales. 


madame  Calderon’s  life  in  Mexico.  345 

When  he  journeys  over  his  little  island,  his  com¬ 
forts  and  luxuries  cling  as  close  to  him  as  round  his 
own  fireside.  He  rolls  over  roads  as  smooth  and 
well-beaten  as  those  in  his  own  park ;  is  swept  on¬ 
ward  by  sleek  and  well-groomed  horses,  in  a  carriage 
as  soft  and  elastic,  and  quite  as  showy  as  his  own 
equipage ;  puts  up  at  inns  that  may  vie  with  his  own 
castle  in  their  comforts  and  accommodations,  and  is 
received  by  crowds  of  obsequious  servants,  more  so¬ 
licitous,  probably,  even  than  his  own  to  win  his  gold¬ 
en  smiles.  In  short,  wherever  he  goes,  he  may  be 
said  to  carry  with  him  his  castle,  park,  equipage,  es¬ 
tablishment.  The  whole  are  in  movement  together. 
He  changes  place,  indeed,  but  changes  nothing  else. 
For  travelling,  as  it  occurs  in  other  lands — hard  roads, 
harder  beds,  and  hardest  fare — he  knows  no  more 
of  it  than  if  he  had  been  passing  from  one  wTing  of 
his  castle  to  the  other. 

All  this,  it  must  be  admitted,  is  rather  an  indiffer¬ 
ent  preparation  for  a  tour  on  the  Continent.  Of 
what  avail  is  it  that  Paris  is  the  most  elegant  capital, 
France  the  most  enlightened  country  on  the  Euro¬ 
pean  terra  firma,  if  one  cannot  walk  in  the  streets 
without  the  risk  of  being  run  over  for  want  of  a 
trottoir,  nor  move  on  the  roads  without  being  half 
smothered  in  a  lumbering  vehicle,  dragged  by  ropes, 
at  the  rate  of  five  miles  an  hour  1  Of  what  account 
are  the  fine  music  and  paintings,  the  architecture 
and  art  of  Italy,  when  one  must  shiver  by  day  for 
want  of  carpets  and  seacoal  fires,  and  be  thrown 
into  a  fever  at  night  by  the  active  vexations  of  a  still 

Xx 


346  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

more  tormenting  kind?  Tlie  galled  equestrian  might 
as  well  be  expected  to  feel  nothing  but  raptures  and 
ravishment  at  the  fine  scenery  through  which  he  is 
riding.  It  is  probable  he  will  think  much  more  of 
his  own  petty  hurts  than  of  the  beauties  of  nature. 
A  travelling  John  Bull,  if  his  skin  is  not  off,  is  at 
least  so  thin-skinned  that  it  is  next  door  to  being  so. 

If  the  European  neighbourhood  affords  so  many 
means  of  annoyance  to  the  British  traveller,  they  are 
incalculably  multiplied  on  this  side  of  the  water,  and 
that,  too,  under  circumstances  which  dispose  him  still 
less  to  charity  in  his  criticisms  and  constructions. 
On  the  Continent  he  feels  he  is  among  strange  races, 
born  and  bred  under  different  religious  and  political 
institutions,  and,  above  all,  speaking  different  lan¬ 
guages.  He  does  not  necessarily,  therefore,  measure 
them  by  his  peculiar  standard,  but  allows  them  one 
of  their  own.  The  dissimilarity  is  so  great  in  all  the 
main  features  of  national  polity  and  society,  that  it 
is  hard  to  institute  a  comparison.  Whatever  be  his 
contempt  for  the  want  of  progress  and  perfection  in 
the  science  of  living,  he  comes  to  regard  them  as  a 
distinct  race,  amenable  to  different  laws,  and  there¬ 
fore  licensed  to  indulge  in  different  usages,  to  a  cer¬ 
tain  extent,  from  his  oavii.  If  a  man  travels  in  China, 
he  makes  up  his  mind  to  chop-sticks.  If  he  should 
go  to  the  moon,  he  would  not  be  scandalized  by  see¬ 
ing  people  walk  with  their  heads  under  their  arms. 
He  has  embarked  on  a  different  planet.  It  is  only 
in  things  which  run  parallel  to  those  in  his  own 
country  that  a  comparison  can  be  instituted,  and 
charity  too  often  fails  where  criticism  begins. 


madame  Calderon’s  life  in  Mexico.  347 

Unhappily,  in  America,  the  Englishman  finds  these 
points  of  comparison  forced  on  him  at  every  step. 
He  lands  among  a  people  speaking  the  same  lan¬ 
guage,  professing  the  same  religion,  drinking  at  the 
same  fountains  of  literature,  trained  in  the  same  oc¬ 
cupations  of  active  life.  The  towns  are  built  on 
much  the  same  model  with  those  in  his  own  land. 
The  brick  houses,  the  streets,  the  “  sidewalks,”  the 
in-door  arrangements,  all,  in  short,  are  near  enough 
on  the  same  pattern  to  provoke  a  comparison.  Alas! 
for  the  comparison.  The  cities  sink  at  once  into 
mere  provincial  towns,  the  language  degenerates  into 
a  provincialize,  the  manners,  the  fashions,  down 
to  the  cut  of  the  clothes,  and  the  equipages,  all  are 
provincial.  The  people,  the  whole  nation— as  in¬ 
dependent  as  any,  certainly,  if  not,  as  our  orators 
fondly  descant,  the  best  and  most  enlightened  upon 
earth  —  dwindle  into  a  mere  British  colony.  The 
traveller  does  not  seem  to  understand  that  he  is 
treading  the  soil  of  the  New  World,  where  every¬ 
thing  is  new,  where  antiquity  dates  but  from  yester¬ 
day,  where  the  present  and  the  future  are  all,  and 
the  past  nothing,  where  hope  is  the  watchword,  and 
“  Go  ahead  !”  the  principle  of  action.  He  does  not 
comprehend  that  when  he  sets  foot  on  such  a  land, 
he  is  no  longer  to  look  for  old  hereditary  landmarks, 
old  time-honoured  monuments  and  institutions,  old 
families  that  have  vegetated  on  the  same  soil  since 
the  Conquest.  He  must  be  content  to  part  with  the 
order  and  something  of  the  decorum  incident  to  an 
old  community,  where  the  ranks  are  all  precisely 


348  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

and  punctiliously  defined,  where  the  power  is  de¬ 
posited  by  prescriptive  right  in  certain  privileged 
hands,  and  where  the  great  mass  have  the  careful 
obsequiousness  of  dependants,  looking  for  the  crumbs 
that  fall. 

He  is  now  among  a  new  people,  where  everything 
is  in  movement,  all  struggling  to  get  forward,  and 
where,  though  many  go  adrift  in  their  wild  spirit  of 
adventure,  and  a  temporary  check  may  be  sometimes 
felt  by  all,  the  great  mass  still  advances.  He  is  land¬ 
ed  on  a  hemisphere  where  fortunes  are  to  be  made, 
and  men  are  employed  in  getting,  not  in  spending — 
a  difference  which  explains  so  many  of  the  discrep¬ 
ancies  between  the  structure  of  our  own  society  and 
habits  and  those  of  the  Old  World.  To  know  how 
to  spend  is  itself  a  science ;  and  the  science  of  spend¬ 
ing  and  that  of  getting  are  rarely  held  by  the  same 
hand. 

In  such  a  state  of  things,  the  whole  arrangement 
of  society,  notwithstanding  the  apparent  resemblance 
to  that  in  his  own  country,  and  its  real  resemblance 
in  minor  points,  is  reversed.  The  rich  proprietor, 
who  does  nothing  but  fatten  on  his  rents,  is  no  long¬ 
er  at  the  head  of  the  scale,  as  in  the  Old  World. 
The  man  of  enterprise  takes  the  lead  in  a  bustling 
community,  where  action  and  progress,  or  at  least 
change,  are  the  very  conditions  of  existence.  The 
upper  classes — if  the  term  can  be  used  in  a  complete 
democracy — have  not  the  luxurious  finish  and  ac¬ 
commodations  to  be  found  in  the  other  hemisphere. 
The  humbler  classes  have  not  the  poverty-stricken, 


madame  Calderon's  life  in  Mexico.  349 

cringing  spirit  of  hopeless  inferiority.  The  pillar  of 
society,  if  it  want  the  Corinthian  capital,  wants  also 
the  heavy  and  superfluous  base.  Every  man  not 
only  professes  to  be,  but  is  practically,  on  a  footing 
of  equality  with  his  neighbour.  The  traveller  must 
not  expect  to  meet  here  the  deference,  or  even  the 
courtesies  which  grow  out  of  distinction  of  castes. 
This  is  an  awkward  dilemma  for  one  whose  nerves 
have  never  been  jarred  by  contact  with  the  profane; 
who  has  never  been  tossed  about  in  the  rough  and 
tumble  of  humanity.  It  is  little  to  him  that  the  poor¬ 
est  child  in  the  community  learns  how  to  read  and 
write ;  that  the  poorest  man  can  have — what  Henry 
the  Fourth  so  good-naturedly  wished  for  the  hum¬ 
blest  of  his  subjects — a  fowl  in  his  pot  every  day  for 
his  dinner;  that  no  one  is  so  low  but  that  he  may 
aspire  to  all  the  rights  of  his  fellow-men,  and  find  an 
open  theatre  on  which  to  display  his  own  peculiar 
talents. 

As  the  tourist  strikes  into  the  interior,  difficulties 
of  all  sorts  multiply,  incident  to  a  raw  and  unformed 
country.  The  comparison  with  the  high  civilization 
at  home  becomes  more  and  more  unfavourable,  as  he 
is  made  to  feel  that  in  this  land  of  promise  it  must 
be  long  before  promise  can  become  the  performance 
of  the  Old  World.  And  yet,  if  he  would  look  be¬ 
yond  the  surface,  he  would  see  that  much  here  too 
has  been  performed,  however  much  may  be  wanting. 
He  would  see  lands  over  which  the  wild  Indian 
roamed  as  a  hunting-ground,  teeming  with  harvests 
for  the  consumption  of  millions  at  home  and  abroad; 


350  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

4  ‘ 

forests,  which  have  shot  up,  ripened,  and  decayed  on 
the  same  spot  ever  since  the  creation,  now  swept 
away  to  make  room  for  towns  and  villages,  thronged 
with  an  industrious  population  ;  rivers,  which  rolled 
on  in  their  solitudes,  undisturbed  except  by  the  wan¬ 
dering  bark  of  the  savage,  now  broken  and  dimpled 
by  hundreds  of  steamboats,  freighted  with  the  rich 
tribute  of  a  country  rescued  from  the  wilderness. 
He  would  not  expect  to  meet  the  careful  courtesies 
of  polished  society  in  the  pioneers  of  civilization, 
whose  mission  has  been  to  recover  the  great  conti¬ 
nent  from  the  bear  and  the  buffalo.  He  would  have 
some  charity  for  their  ignorance  of  the  latest  fash¬ 
ions  of  Bond-street,  and  their  departure,  sometimes, 
even  from  what,  in  the  Old  Country,  is  considered  as 
the  decorum,  and,  it  may  be,  decencies  of  life.  But 
not  so ;  his  heart  turns  back  to  his  own  land,  and 
closes  against  the  rude  scenes  around  him  ;  for  he 
finds  here  none  of  the  soft  graces  of  cultivation,  or 
the  hallowed  memorials  of  an  early  civilization  ;  no 
gray,  weather-beaten  cathedrals,  telling  of  the  Nor¬ 
mans  ;  no  Gothic  churches  in  their  groves  of  vener¬ 
able  oaks ;  no  moss-covered  cemeteries,  in  which  the 
dust  of  his  fathers  has  been  gathered  since  the  time 
of  the  Plantagenets ;  no  rural  cottages,  half  smoth¬ 
ered  with  roses  and  honeysuckles,  intimating  that 
even  in  the  most  humble  abodes  the  taste  for  the 
beautiful  has  found  its  way;  no  trim  gardens,  and 
fields  blossoming  with  hawthorn  hedges  and  minia¬ 
ture  culture  ;  no  ring  fences,  enclosing  well-shaven 
lawns,  woods  so  disposed  as  to  form  a  picture  of 


madame  Calderon’s  life  in  Mexico.  351 

themselves,  bright  threads  of  silvery  water,  and 
sparkling  fountains.  All  these  are  wanting,  and  his 
eyes  turn  with  disgust  from  the  wild  and  rugged  fea¬ 
tures  of  nature,  and  all  her  rough  accompaniments — 
from  man  almost  as  wild  ;  and  his  heart  sickens  as 
he  thinks  of  his  own  land,  and  all  its  scenes  of  beau¬ 
ty.  He  thinks  not  of  the  poor,  who  leave  that  land 
for  want  of  bread,  and  find  in  this  a  kindly  welcome, 
and  the  means  of  independence  and  advancement 
which  their  own  denies  them. 

He  goes  on,  if  he  be  a  splenetic  Sinbad,  dischar¬ 
ging  his  sour  bile  on  everybody  that  he  comes  in  con¬ 
tact  with,  thus  producing  an  amiable  ripple  in  the 
current  as  he  proceeds,  that  adds  marvellously,  no 
doubt,  to  his  own  quiet  and  personal  comfort.  If  he 
have  a  true  merry  vein  and  hearty  good  nature,  he 
gets  on,  laughing  sometimes  in  his  sleeve  at  others, 
and  cracking  his  jokes  on  the  unlucky  pate  of  Broth¬ 
er  Jonathan,  who,  if  he  is  not  very  silly — which  he 
very  often  is — laughs  too,  and  joins  in  the  jest, 
though  it  may  be  somewhat  at  his  own  expense.  It 
matters  little  whether  the  tourist  be  Whig  or  Tory 
in  his  own  land  ;  if  the  latter,  he  returns,  probably, 
ten  times  the  Conservative  that  he  was  when  he  left 
it.  If  Whig,  or  even  Radical,  it  matters  not;  his 
loyalty  waxes  warmer  and  warmer  with  every  step 
of  his  progress  among  the  Republicans ;  and  he  finds 
that  practical  democracy,  shouldering  and  elbowing 
its  neighbours  as  it  “goes  ahead,”  is  no  more  like 
the  democracy  which  he  has  been  accustomed  to  ad¬ 
mire  in  theory,  than  the  real  machinery,  with  its 


352  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

smell,  smoke,  and  clatter,  under  full  operation,  is  like 
the  pretty  toy  which  he  sees  as  a  model  in  the  Pat¬ 
ent  Office  at  Washington. 

There  seems  to  be  no  people  better  constituted 
for  travellers,  at  least  for  recording  their  travelling 
experiences,  than  the  French.  There  is  a  mixture  of 
frivolity  and  philosophy  in  their  composition  which 
is  admirably  suited  to  the  exigencies  of  their  situa¬ 
tion.  They  mingle  readily  with  all  classes  and 
races,  discarding  for  the  time  their  own  nationality 
— at  least  their  national  antipathies.  Their  pleas¬ 
ant  vanity  fills  them  with  the  desire  of  pleasing  oth¬ 
ers,  which  most  kindly  reacts  by  their  being  them¬ 
selves  pleased : 

“  Pleased  with  himself,  whom  all  the  world  can  please.” 

The  Frenchman  can  even  so  far  accommodate 
himself  to  habits  alien  to  his  own,  that  he  can  toler¬ 
ate  those  of  the  savages  themselves,  and  enter  into  a 
sort  of  fellowship  with  them,  without  either  party 
altogether  discarding  his  national  tastes  and  propen¬ 
sities.  It  is  Chateaubriand,  if  we  are  not  mistaken, 
who  relates  that,  wandering  in  the  solitudes  of  the 
American  wilderness,  his  ears  were  most  unexpect¬ 
edly  saluted  by  the  sounds  of  a  violin.  He  had  lit¬ 
tle  doubt  that  one  of  his  own  countrymen  must  be 
at  hand  ;  and  in  a  wretched  enclosure  he  found  one 
of  them,  sure  enough,  teaching  Messieurs  les  sauvages 
to  dance.  It  is  certain  that  this  spirit  of  accommo¬ 
dation  to  the  wild  habits  of  their  copper-coloured 
friends  gave  the  French  traders  and  missionaries 


madame  Calderon’s  life  in  Mexico.  353 

formerly  an  ascendency  over  the  Aborigines  which 
was  never  obtained  by  any  other  of  the  white  men. 

The  most  comprehensive  and  truly  philosophic 
work  on  the  genius  and  institutions  of  this  country, 
the  best  exposition  of  its  social  phenomena,  its  pres¬ 
ent  condition,  and  probable  future,  are  to  be  found 
in  the  pages  of  a  Frenchman.  It  is  in  the  French 
language,  too,  that  by  far  the  greatest  work  has  been 
produced  on  the  great  Southern  portion  of  our  con¬ 
tinent,  once  comprehended  under  New  Spain. 

To  write  a  book  of  travels  seems  to  most  people 
to  require  as  little  preliminary  preparation  as  to  write 
a  letter.  One  has  only  to  jump  into  a  coach,  em¬ 
bark  on  board  a  steamboat,  minute  down  his  flying 
experiences  and  hair-breadth  escapes,  the  aspect  of 
the  country  as  seen  from  the  interior  of  a  crowded 
diligence  or  a  vanishing  rail-car,  note  the  charges  of 
the  landlords  and  the  quality  of  the  fare,  a  dinner  or 
two  at  the  minister’s,  the  last  new  play  or  opera  at 
the  theatre,  and  the  affair  is  done.  It  is  very  easy 
to  do  this,  certainly  ;  very  easy  to  make  a  bad  book 
of  travels,  but  by  no  means  easy  to  make  a  good 
one.  This  requires  as  many  and  various  qualifica¬ 
tions  as  to  make  any  other  good  book  ;  qualifications 
which  must  vary  with  the  character  of  the  country 
one  is  to  visit.  Thus,  for  instance,  it  requires  a  very 
different  preparation  and  stock  of  accomplishments 
to  make  the  tour  of  Italy,  its  studios  and  its  galleries 
of  art,  or  of  Egypt,  with  its  immortal  pyramids  and 
mighty  relics  of  a  primeval  age,  the  great  cemetery  of 
antiquity,  from  what  it  does  to  travel  understand- 

Y  Y 


354  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ingly  in  our  own  land,  a  new  creation,  as  it  were, 
without  monuments,  without  arts,  where  the  only 
study  of  the  traveller — the  noblest  of  all  studies,  it  is 
true — is  man.  The  inattention  to  this  difference  of 
preparation,  demanded  by  different  places,  has  led 
many  a  clever  writer  to  make  a  very  worthless  book, 
which  would  have  been  remedied  had  he  consulted 
his  own  qualifications  instead  of  taking  the  casual 
direction  of  the  first  steamboat  or  mail-coach  that 
lay  in  his  way. 

There  is  no  country  more  difficult  to  discuss  in 
all  its  multiform  aspects  than  Mexico,  or,  rather,  the 
wide  region  once  comprehended  under  the  name  of 
New  Spain.  Its  various  climates,  bringing  to  per¬ 
fection  the  vegetable  products  of  the  most  distant 
latitudes ;  its  astonishing  fruitfulness  in  its  lower  re¬ 
gions,  and  its  curse  of  barrenness  over  many  a  broad 
acre  of  its  plateau ;  its  inexhaustible  mines,  that 
have  flooded  the  Old  World  with  an  ocean  of  silver, 
such  as  Columbus  in  his  wildest  visions  never 
dreamed  of — and,  unhappily,  by  a  hard  mischance, 
never  lived  to  realize  himself ;  its  picturesque  land¬ 
scape,  where  the  volcanic  fire  gleams  amid  wastes 
of  eternal  snow,  and  a  few  hours  carry  the  traveller 
from  the  hot  regions  of  the  lemon  and  the  cocoa  to 
the  wintry  solitudes  of  the  mountain  fir ;  its  motley 
population,  made  up  of  Indians,  old  Spaniards,  mod¬ 
ern  Mexicans,  meztizoes,  mulattoes,  and  zambos ; 
its  cities  built  in  the  clouds ;  its  lakes  of  salt  water, 
hundreds  of  miles  from  the  ocean ;  its  people,  with 
their  wild  and  variegated  costume,  in  keeping,  as  we 


madame  Calderon’s  life  in  Mexico.  355 

may  say,  with  its  extraordinary  scenery  ;  its  stately 
palaces,  half  furnished,  where  services  of  gold  and 
silver  plate  load  the  tables  in  rooms  without  a  car¬ 
pet,  while  the  red  dust  of  the  bricks  soils  the  dia¬ 
mond-sprinkled  robes  of  the  dancer ;  the  costly  attire 
of  its  higher  classes,  blazing  with  pearls  and  jewels; 
the  tawdry  magnificence  of  its  equipages,  saddles 
inlaid  with  gold,  bits  and  stirrups  of  massy  silver,  all 
executed  in  the  clumsiest  style  of  workmanship ;  its 
lower  classes — the  men  with  their  jackets  glittering 
with  silver  buttons,  and  rolls  of  silver  tinsel  round 
their  caps ;  the  women  with  petticoats  fringed  with 
lace,  and  white  satin  shoes  on  feet  unprotected  by  a 
stocking ;  its  high-born  fair  ones  crowding  to  the 
cock-pit,  and  solacing  themselves  with  the  fumes  of 
a  cigar ;  its  churches  and  convents,  in  which  all 
those  sombre  rules  of  monastic  life  are  maintained 
in  their  primitive  rigour,  which  have  died  away  be¬ 
fore  the  liberal  spirit  of  the  age  on  the  other  side  of 
the  water;  its  swarms  of  leperos,  the  lazzaroni  of 
the  land ;  its  hordes  of  almost  legalized  banditti, 
who  stalk  openly  in  the  streets,  and  render  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  an  armed  escort  necessary  to  secure  a  safe 
drive  into  the  environs  of  the  capital ;  its  whole 
structure  of  society,  in  which  a  Republican  form  is 
thrown  over  institutions  as  aristocratic,  and  castes 
as  nicely  defined,  as  in  any  monarchy  of  Europe; 
in  short,  its  marvellous  inconsistencies  and  contrasts 
in  climate,  character  of  the  people,  and  face  of  the 
land — so  marvellous  as,  we  trust,  to  excuse  the  un¬ 
precedented  length  of  this  sentence — undoubtedly 


356  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

make  modem  Mexico  one  of  the  most  prolific,  origi¬ 
nal,  and  difficult  themes  for  the  study  of  the  traveller. 

Yet  this  great  theme  has  found  in  Humboldt  a 
writer  of  strength  sufficient  to  grapple  with  it  in 
nearly  all  its  relations.  While  yet  a  young  man,  or, 
at  least,  while  his  physical  as  well  as  mental  ener¬ 
gies  were  in  their  meridian,  he  came  over  to  this 
country  with  an  enthusiasm  for  science  which  was 
only  heightened  by  obstacles,  and  with  stores  of  it 
already  accumulated  that  enabled  him  to  detect  the 
nature  of  every  new  object  that  came  under  his  eye, 
and  arrange  it  in  its  proper  class.  With  his  scien¬ 
tific  instruments  in  his  hand,  he  might  be  seen  sca¬ 
ling  the  snow-covered  peaks  of  the  Cordilleras,  or 
diving  into  their  unfathomable  caverns  of  silver;  now 
wandering  through  their  dark  forests  in  search  of 
new  specimens  for  his  herbarium,  now  coasting  the 
stormy  shores  of  the  Gulf,  and  penetrating  its  un¬ 
healthy  streams,  jotting  down  every  landmark  that 
might  serve  to  guide  the  future  navigator,  or  survey¬ 
ing  the  crested  Isthmus  in  search  of  a  practicable 
communication  between  the  great  seas  on  its  bor¬ 
ders,  and  then,  again,  patiently  studying  the  monu¬ 
ments  and  manuscripts  of  the  Aztecs  in  the  capital, 
or  mingling  with  the  wealth  and  fashion  in  its  sa¬ 
loons  ;  frequenting  every  place,  in  short,  and  every¬ 
where  at  home : 

“  Grammaticus,  rhetor,  geometres,  ....  omnia  novit.” 

The  whole  range  of  these  various  topics  is  brought 
under  review  in  his  pages,  and  on  all  he  sheds  a  ray, 
sometimes  a  flood  of  light.  His  rational  philosophy, 


MADAME  CALDERON^  LIFE  IN  MEXICO.  357 

content  rather  to  doubt  than  to  decide,  points  out 
the  track  which  other  adventurous  spirits  may  follow 
up  with  advantage.  No  antiquary  has  done  so  much 
towards  determining  the  original  hives  of  the  semi- 
civilized  races  of  the  Mexican  plateau.  No  one,  not 
even  of  the  Spaniards,  has  brought  together  such  an 
important  mass  of  information  in  respect  to  the  re¬ 
sources,  natural  products,  and  statistics  generally,  of 
New  Spain.  His  explorations  have  identified  more 
than  one  locality,  and  illustrated  more  than  one  cu¬ 
rious  monument  of  the  people  of  Anahuac,  which 
had  baffled  the  inquiries  of  native  antiquaries ;  and 
his  work,  while  imbodying  the  results  of  profound 
scholarship  and  art,  is,  at  the  same  time,  in  many 
respects,  the  very  best  manuel  du  voyageur,  and,  as 
such,  has  been  most  freely  used  by  subsequent  tour¬ 
ists.  It  is  true,  his  pages  are  sometimes  disfigured 
by  pedantry,  ambitious  display,  learned  obscurity, 
and  other  affectations  of  the  man  of  letters.  But 
what  human  work  is  without  its  blemishes  ?  His 
various  writings  on  the  subject  of  New  Spain,  taken 
collectively,  are  one  of  those  monuments  which  may 
be  selected  to  show  the  progress  of  the  species. 
Their  author  reminds  us  of  one  of  the  ancient  ath- 
letee,  who  descended  into  the  arena  to  hurl  the  dis¬ 
cus  with  a  giant  arm,  that  distanced  every  cast  of 
his  contemporaries ! 

There  is  one  branch  of  his  fruitful  subject  which 
M.  de  Humboldt  has  not  exhausted,  and,  indeed,  has 
but  briefly  touched  on.  This  is  the  social  condition 
of  the  country,  especially  as  found  in  its  picturesque 


358  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

capital.  This  has  been  discussed  by  subsequent 
travellers  more  fully,  and  Ward,  Bullock,  Lyons, 
Poinsett,  Tudor,  Latrobe,  have  all  produced  works 
which  have  for  their  object,  more  or  less,  the  social 
habits  and  manners  of  the  people.  With  most  of 
them  this  is  not  the  prominent  object ;  and  others 
of  them,  probably,  have  found  obstacles  in  effecting 
it,  to  any  great  extent,  from  an  imperfect  knowledge 
of  the  language — the  golden  key  to  the  sympathies 
of  a  people — without  which  a  traveller  is  as  much 
at  fault  as  a  man  without  an  eye  for  colour  in  a  pic¬ 
ture-gallery,  or  an  ear  for  music  at  a  concert.  He 
may  see  and  hear,  indeed,  in  both,  but  cui  bono  ? 
The  traveller,  ignorant  of  the  language  of  the  nation 
whom  he  visits,  may  descant  on  the  scenery,  the 
roads,  the  architecture,  the  outside  of  things,  the 
rates  and  distances  of  posting,  the  dress  of  the  peo¬ 
ple  in  the  streets,  and  may  possibly  meet  a  native 
or  two,  half  denaturalized,  kept  to  dine  with  stran¬ 
gers  at  his  banker’s.  But  as  to  the  interior  mech¬ 
anism  of  society,  its  secret  sympathies,  and  familiar 
tone  of  thinking  and  feeling,  he  can  know  no  more 
than  he  could  of  the  contents  of  a  library  by  run¬ 
ning  over  the  titles  of  strange  and  unknown  authors 
packed  together  on  the  shelves. 

It  was  to  supply  this  deficiency  that  the  work  be¬ 
fore  us,  no  doubt,  was  given  to  the  public,  and  it  was 
composed  under  circumstances  that  afforded  every 
possible  advantage  and  facility  to  its  author.  Al¬ 
though  the  initials  only  of  the  name  are  given  in  the 
title-page,  yet,  from  these  and  certain  less  equivocal 


madame  Calderon’s  life  in  Mexico.  359 

passages  in  the  body  of  the  work,  it  requires  no 
CEdipus  to  divine  that  the  author  is  the  wife  of  the 
Chevalier  Calderon  de  la  Barca,  well  known  in  this 
country  during  his  long  residence  as  Spanish  minis¬ 
ter  at  Washington,  where  his  amiable  manners  and 
high  personal  qualities  secured  him  general  respect, 
and  the  regard  of  all  who  knew  him.  On  the  recog¬ 
nition  of  the  independence  of  Mexico  by  the  mother 
country,  Senor  Calderon  was  selected  to  fill  the 
office  of  the  first  Spanish  envoy  to  the  Republic.  It 
was  a  delicate  mission  after  so  long  an  estrangement, 
and  it  was  hailed  by  the  Mexicans  with  every  dem¬ 
onstration  of  pride  and  satisfaction.  Though  twen¬ 
ty  years  had  elapsed  since  they  had  established  their 
independence,  yet  they  felt  as  a  wayward  son  may 
feel  who,  having  absconded  from  the  paternal  roof 
and  set  up  for  himself,  still  looks  back  to  it  with  a 
sort  of  reverence,  and,  in  the  plenitude  of  his  pros¬ 
perity,  still  feels  the  want  of  the  parental  benediction. 
We,  who  cast  off  our  allegiance  in  a  similar  way, 
can  comprehend  the  feeling.  The  new  minister, 
from  the  moment  of  his  setting  foot  on  the  Mexican 
shore,  was  greeted  with  an  enthusiasm  which  attest¬ 
ed  the  popular  feeling,  and  his  presence  in  the  cap¬ 
ital  was  celebrated  by  theatrical  exhibitions,  bull¬ 
fights,  illuminations,  fetes  public  and  private,  and 
every  possible  demonstration  of  respect  for  the  new 
envoy  and  the  country  who  sent  him.  His  position 
secured  him  access  to  every  place  of  interest  to  an 
intelligent  stranger,  and  introduced  him  into  the  most 
intimate  recesses  of  society,  from  which  the  stranger 


360  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

is  commonly  excluded,  and  to  which,  indeed,  none 
but  a  Spaniard  could,  under  any  circumstances,  have 
been  admitted.  Fortunately,  the  minister  possessed, 
in  the  person  of  his  accomplished  wife,  one  who  had 
both  the  leisure  and  the  talent  to  profit  by  these  un¬ 
common  opportunities,  and  the  result  is  given  in 
the  work  before  us,  consisting  of  letters  to  her  family, 
which,  it  seems,  since  her  return  to  the  United  States, 
have  been  gathered  together  and  prepared  for  pub¬ 
lication.* 

******* 

The  present  volumes  make  no  pretensions  to  en¬ 
large  the  boundaries  of  our  knowledge  in  respect  to 
the  mineral  products  of  the  country,  its  geography, 
its  statistics,  or,  in  short,  to  physical  or  political  sci¬ 
ence.  These  topics  have  been  treated  with  more 
or  less  depth  by  the  various  travellers  who  have  writ¬ 
ten  since  the  great  publications  of  Humboldt.  We 
have  had  occasion  to  become  tolerably  well  acquaint¬ 
ed  with  their  productions  ;  and  we  may  safely  assert, 
that  for  spirited  portraiture  of  society — a  society  un¬ 
like  anything  existing  in  the  Old  World  or  the  New 
— for  picturesque  delineation  of  scenery,  for  richness 
of  illustration  and  anecdote,  and  for  the  fascinating 
graces  of  style,  no  one  of  them  is  to  be  compared 
with  “  Life  in  Mexico/’ 

*  The  analysis  of  the  work,  with  several  pages  of  extracts  from  it,  is 
here  omitted,  as  containing  nothing  that  is  not  already  familiar  to  the 
English  reader. 


MOLIERE. 


361 


MOLIERE, 

OCTOBER,  1828. 

The  French  surpass  every  other  nation,  indeed 
all  the  other  nations  of  Europe  put  together,  in  the 
amount  and  excellence  of  their  memoirs.  Whence 
comes  this  manifest  superiority  l  The  important 
Collection  relating  to  the  History  of  France,  com¬ 
mencing  as  early  as  the  thirteenth  century,  forms  a 
basis  of  civil  history,  more  authentic,  circumstantial, 
and  satisfactory  to  an  intelligent  inquirer  than  is  to 
be  found  among  any  other  people  ;  and  the  multi¬ 
tude  of  biographies,  personal  anecdotes,  and  similar 
scattered  notices,  which  have  appeared  in  France 
during  the  two  last  centuries,  throw  a  flood  of  light 
on  the  social  habits  and  general  civilization  of  the 
period  in  which  they  were  written.  The  Italian 
histories  (and  every  considerable  city  in  Italy,  says 
Tiraboschi,  had  its  historian  as  early  as  the  thirteenth 
century)  are  fruitful  only  in  wars,  massacres,  trea¬ 
sonable  conspiracies,  or  diplomatic  intrigues,  matters 
that  affect  the  tranquillity  of  the  state.  The  rich 
body  of  Spanish  chronicles,  which  maintain  an  un¬ 
broken  succession  from  the  reign  of  Alphonso  the 
Wise  to  that  of  Philip  the  Second,  are  scarcely 
more  personal  or  interesting  in  their  details,  unless  it 
be  in  reference  to  the  sovereign  and  his  immediate 

*  “  Histoire  de  la  Vie  et  des  Ouvrages  de  Moliere.  Par  J.  Taschereau.” 
Paris.  1825. 

z  z 


362  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

court.  Even  the  English,  in  their  memoirs  and  au¬ 
tobiographies  of  the  last  century,  are  too  exclusively 
confined  to  topics  of  public  notoriety,  as  the  only 
subject  worthy  of  record,  or  which  can  excite  a  gen¬ 
eral  interest  in  their  readers.  Not  so  with  the  French. 
The  most  frivolous  details  assume  in  their  eyes  an 
importance,  when  they  can  be  made  illustrative  of 
an  eminent  character;  and  even  when  they  con¬ 
cern  one  of  less  note,  they  become  sufficiently  inter¬ 
esting,  as  just  pictures  of  life  and  manners.  Hence, 
instead  of  exhibiting  their  hero  only  as  he  appears 
on  the  great  theatre,  they  carry  us  along  with  him 
into  retirement,  or  into  those  social  circles  where, 
stripped  of  his  masquerade  dress,  he  can  indulge  in 
all  the  natural  gayety  of  his  heart — in  those  frivoli¬ 
ties  and  follies  which  display  the  real  character 
much  better  than  all  his  premeditated  wisdom  ;  those 
little  nothings,  which  make  up  so  much  of  the  sum 
of  French  memoirs,  but  which,  however  amusing, 
are  apt  to  be  discarded  by  their  more  serious  Eng¬ 
lish  neighbours  as  something  derogatory  to  their 
hero.  Where  shall  we  find  a  more  lively  portrait¬ 
ure  of  that  interesting  period,  when  feudal  barbarism 
began  to  fade  away  before  the  civilized  institutions 
of  modern  times,  than  in  Philip  de  Comines’  sketch¬ 
es  of  the  courts  of  France  and  Burgundy  in  the  lat¬ 
ter  half  of  the  fifteenth  century  ?  Where  a  more 
nice  development  of  the  fashionable  intrigues,  the 
corrupt  Machiavelian ,  politics  which  animated  the 
little  coteries,  male  and  female,  of  Paris,  under  the 
regency  of  Anne  of  Austria,  than  in  the  Memoirs  of 


MOLIERE. 


363 


De  Retz  ?  To  say  nothing  of  the  vast  amount  of 
similar  contributions  in  France  during  the  last  cen¬ 
tury,  which,  in  the  shape  of  letters  and  anecdotes, 
as  well  as  memoirs,  have  made  us  as  intimately  ac¬ 
quainted  with  the  internal  movements  of  society  in 
Paris,  under  all  its  aspects,  literary,  fashionable,  and 
political,  as  if  they  had  passed  in  review  before  our 
own  eyes. 

The  French  have  been  remarked  for  their  excel¬ 
lence  in  narrative  ever  since  the  times  of  the  fabli¬ 
aux  and  the  old  Norman  romances.  Somewhat  of 
their  success  in  this  way  may  be  imputed  to  the 
structure  of  their  language,  whose  general  currency, 
and  whose  peculiar  fitness  for  prose  composition, 
have  been  noticed  from  a  very  early  period.  Bru- 
netto  Latini,  the  master  of  Dante,  wrote  his  Tesoro 
in  French,  in  preference  to  his  own  tongue,  as  far 
back  as  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  on  the 
ground  “  that  its  speech  was  the  most  universal  and 
most  delectable  of  all  the  dialects  of  Europe.”  And 
Dante  asserts  in  his  treatise  “  on  Vulgar  Eloquence,” 
that  “the  superiority  of  the  French  consists  in  its 
adaptation,  by  means  of  its  facility  and  agreeable¬ 
ness,  to  narratives  in  prose.’’  Much  of  the  wild,  art¬ 
less  grace,  the  naivete ,  which  characterized  it  in  its 
infancy,  has  been  gradually  polished  away  by  fas¬ 
tidious  critics,  and  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  sur¬ 
vived  Marot  and  Montaigne.  But  the  language  has 
gained  considerably  in  perspicuity,  precision,  and 
simplicity  of  construction,  to  which  the  jealous  la¬ 
bours  of  the  French  Academy  must  be  admitted  to 


364  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

have  contributed  essentially.  This  simplicity  of 
construction,  refusing  those  complicated  inversions 
so  usual  in  the  other  languages  of  the  Continent,  and 
its  total  want  of  prosody,  though  fatal  to  poetical 
purposes,  have  greatly  facilitated  its  acquisition  to 
foreigners,  and  have  made  it  a  most  suitable  vehicle 
for  conversation.  Since  the  time  of  Louis  the  Four¬ 
teenth,  accordingly,  it  has  become  the  language  of 
the  courts,  and  the  popular  medium  of  communica¬ 
tion  in  most  of  the  countries  of  Europe.  Since 
that  period,  too,  it  has  acquired  a  number  of  elegant 
phrases  and  familiar  turns  of  expression,  which  have 
admirably  fitted  it  for  light,  popular  narrative,  like 
that  which  enters  into  memoirs,  letter-writing,  and 
similar  kinds  of  composition. 

The  character  and  situation  of  the  writers  them¬ 
selves  may  account  still  better  for  the  success  of  the 
French  in  this  department.  Many  of  them,  as  Join- 
ville,  Sully,  Comines,  De  Thou,  Rochefoucault,  Tor- 
cy,  have  been  men  of  rank  and  education,  the  coun¬ 
sellors  or  the  friends  of  princes,  acquiring  from  ex¬ 
perience  a  shrewd  perception  of  the  character  and 
of  the  forms  of  society.  Most  of  them  have  been 
familiarized  in  those  polite  circles  which,  in  Paris 
more  than  any  other  capital,  seem  to  combine  the 
love  of  dissipation  and  fashion  with  a  high  relish  for 
intellectual  pursuits.  The  state  of  society  in  France, 
or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  in  Paris,  is  admirably 
suited  to  the  purposes  of  the  memoir-writer.  The 
cheerful,  gregarious  temper  of  the  inhabitants,  which 
mingles  all  ranks  in  the  common  pursuit  of  pleasure; 


MOLIERE. 


365 


the  external  polish,  which  scarcely  deserts  them  in 
the  commission  of  the  grossest  violence ;  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  the  women,  during  the  last  two  centuries, 
far  superior  to  that  of  the  sex  among  any  other  peo¬ 
ple,  and  exercised  alike  on  matters  of  taste,  politics, 
and  letters ;  the  gallantry  and  licentious  intrigues  so 
usual  in  the  higher  classes  of  this  gay  metropolis, 
and  which  fill  even  the  life  of  a  man  of  letters,  so 
stagnant  in  every  other  country,  with  stirring  and 
romantic  adventure ;  all  these,  we  say,  make  up  a 
rich  and  varied  panorama,  that  can  hardly  fail  of 
interest  under  the  hand  of  the  most  common  artist. 

Lastly,  the  vanity  of  the  French  may  be  consid¬ 
ered  as  another  cause  of  their  success  in  this  kind 
of  writing ;  a  vanity  which  leads  them  to  disclose  a 
thousand  amusing  particulars,  which  the  reserve  of 
an  Englishman,  and  perhaps  his  pride,  would  discard 
as  altogether  unsuitable  to  the  public  ear.  This  van¬ 
ity,  it  must  be  confessed,  however,  has  occasionally 
seduced  their  writers,  under  the  garb  of  confessions 
and  secret  memoirs,  to  make  such  a  disgusting  ex¬ 
posure  of  human  infirmity  as  few  men  would  be 
willing  to  admit,  even  to  themselves. 

The  best  memoirs  of  late  produced  in  France 
seem  to  have  assumed  somewhat  of  a  novel  shape. 
While  they  are  written  with  the  usual  freedom  and 
vivacity,  they  are  fortified  by  a  body  of  references 
and  illustrations  that  attest  an  unwonted  degree  of 
elaboration  and  research.  Such  are  those  of  Rous¬ 
seau,  La  Fontaine,  and  Moliere,  lately  published. 
The  last  of  these,  which  forms  the  subject  of  our  ar- 


366  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

tide,  is  a  compilation  of  all  that  lias  ever  been  re¬ 
corded  of  the  life  of  Moliere.  It  is  executed  in  an 
agreeable  manner,  and  has  the  merit  of  examining, 
with  more  accuracy  than  has  been  hitherto  done, 
certain  doubtful  points  in  his  biography,  and  of  assem¬ 
bling  together  in  a  convenient  form  what  has  before 
been  diffused  over  a  great  variety  of  surface.  But, 
however  familiar  most  of  these  particulars  may  be 
to  the  countrymen  of  Moliere  (by  far  the  greatest 
comic  genius  in  his  own  nation,  and,  in  very  many 
respects,  inferior  to  none  in  any  other),  they  are  not 
so  current  elsewhere  as  to  lead  us  to  imagine  that 
some  account  of  his  life  and  literary  labours  would 
be  altogether  unacceptable  to  our  readers. 

Jean-Baptiste  Poquelin  (Moliere)  was  born  in  Par¬ 
is,  January  15,  1622.  His  father  was  an  upholster¬ 
er,  as  his  grandfather  had  been  before  him ;  and  the 
young  Poquelin  was  destined  to  exercise  the  same 
hereditary  craft,  to  which,  indeed,  he  served  an  ap¬ 
prenticeship  until  the  age  of  fourteen.  In  this  deter¬ 
mination  his  father  was  confirmed  by  the  office  which 
he  had  obtained  for  himself,  in  connexion  with  his 
original  vocation,  of  valet  de  chambre  to  the  king,  with 
the  promise  of  a  reversion  of  it  to  his  son  on  his  own 
decease.  The  youth  accordingly  received  only  such 
a  meager  elementary  education  as  was  usual  with 
the  artisans  of  that  day.  But  a  secret  consciousness 
of  his  own  powers  convinced  him  that  he  was  des¬ 
tined  by  nature  for  higher  purposes  than  that  of  quilt¬ 
ing  sofas  and  hanging  tapestry.  His  occasional  pres¬ 
ence  at  the  theatrical  representations  of  the  Hotel  de 


MOL1ERE. 


367 


Bourgogne  is  said  also  to  have  awakened  in  his  mind, 
at  this  period,  a  passion  for  the  drama.  He  therefore 
solicited  his  father  to  assist  him  in  obtaining  more 
liberal  instruction ;  and  when  the  latter  at  length 
yielded  to  the  repeated  entreaties  of  his  son,  it  was 
with  the  reluctance  of  one  who  imagines  that  he  is 
spoiling  a  good  mechanic  in  order  to  make  a  poor 
scholar.  He  was  accordingly  introduced  into  the 
Jesuits’  College  of  Clermont,  where  he  followed  the 
usual  course  of  study  for  five  years  with  diligence 
and  credit.  He  was  fortunate  enough  to  pursue  the 
study  of  philosophy  under  the  direction  of  the  cele¬ 
brated  Gassendi,  with  his  fellow-pupils,  Chapellethe 
poet,  afterward  his  intimate  friend,  and  Bernier,  so 
famous  subsequently  for  his  travels  in  the  East,  but 
who,  on  his  return,  had  the  misfortune  to  lose  the 
favour  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth  by  replying  to  him, 
that  ‘  of  all  the  countries  he  had  ever  seen,  he  pre¬ 
ferred  Switzerland.’ 

On  the  completion  of  his  studies  in  1641,  he  was 
required  to  accompany  the  king,  then  Louis  the 
Thirteenth,  in  his  capacity  of  valet  de  chambre  (his 
father  being  detained  in  Paris  by  his  infirmities),  on 
an  excursion  to  the  south  of  France.  This  journey 
afforded  him  the  opportunity  of  becoming  intimately 
acquainted  with  the  habits  of  the  court,  as  well  as 
those  of  the  provinces,  of  which  he  afterward  so  re¬ 
peatedly  availed  himself  in  his  comedies.  On  his 
return  he  commenced  the  study  of  the  law,  and  had 
completed  it,  it  would  appear,  when  his  old  passion 
for  the  theatre  revived  with  increased  ardour,  and, 


368  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


after  some  hesitation,  he  determined  no  longer  to 
withstand  the  decided  impulse  of  his  genius.  He 
associated  himself  with  one  of  those  city  companies 
of  players  with  which  Paris  had  swarmed  since  the 
days  of  Richelieu — a  minister  who  aspired  after  the 
same  empire  in  the  republic  of  letters  which  he  had 
so  long  maintained  over  the  state,  and  whose  osten¬ 
tatious  patronage  eminently  contributed  to  develop 
that  taste  for  dramatic  exhibition  which  has  distin¬ 
guished  his  countrymen  ever  since. 

The  consternation  of  the  elder  Poquelin,  on  re¬ 
ceiving  the  intelligence  of  his  son’s  unexpected  de¬ 
termination,  may  be  readily  conceived.  It  blasted  at 
once  all  the  fair  promise  which  the  rapid  progress 
the  latter  had  made  in  his  studies  justified  him  in 
forming,  and  it  degraded  him  to  an  unfortunate  pro¬ 
fession,  esteemed  at  that  time  even  more  lightly  in 
France  than  it  has  been  in  other  countries.  The 
humiliating  dependance  of  the  comedian  on  the  pop¬ 
ular  favour,  the  daily  exposure  of  his  person  to  the 
caprice  and  insults  of  an  unfeeling  audience,  the  nu¬ 
merous  temptations  incident  to  his  precarious  and 
unsettled  life,  may  furnish  abundant  objections  to  this 
profession  in  the  mind  of  every  parent.  But  in 
France,  to  all  these  objections  were  superadded  oth¬ 
ers  of  a  graver  cast,  founded  on  religion.  The  cler¬ 
gy  there,  alarmed  at  the  rapidly-increasing  taste  for 
dramatic  exhibitions,  openly  denounced  these  elegant 
recreations  as  an  insult  to  the  Deity ;  and  the  pious 
father  anticipated,  in  this  preference  of  his  son,  his 
spiritual  no  less  than  his  temporal  perdition.  He 


MOLIERE. 


369 


actually  made  an  earnest  remonstrance  to  him  to  this 
effect,  through  the  intervention  of  one  of  his  friends, 
who,  however,  instead  of  converting  the  youth,  was 
himself  persuaded  to  join  the  company  then  organ¬ 
izing  under  his  direction.  But  his  family  were  nev¬ 
er  reconciled  to  his  proceeding;  and  even  at  a  later 
period  of  his  life,  when  his  splendid  successes  in  his 
new  career  had  shown  how  rightly  he  had  under¬ 
stood  the  character  of  his  own  genius,  they  never 
condescended  to  avail  themselves  of  the  freedom  of 
admission  to  his  theatre,  which  he  repeatedly  prof¬ 
fered.  M.  Bret,  his  editor,  also  informs  us,  that  he 
had  himself  seen  a  genealogical  tree  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  the  descendants  of  this  same  family,  in  which 
the  name  of  Moliere  was  not  even  admitted !  Un¬ 
less  it  were  to  trace  their  connexion  with  so  illus¬ 
trious  a  name,  what  could  such  a  family  want  of  a 
genealogical  tree  !  It  was  from  a  deference  to  these 
scruples  that  our  hero  annexed  to  his  patronymic 
the  name  of  Moliere,  by  which  alone  he  has  been 
recognised  by  posterity. 

During  the  three  following  years  he  continued 
playing  in  Paris,  until  the  turbulent  regency  of  Anne 
of  Austria  withdrew  the  attention  of  the  people  from 
the  quiet  pleasures  of  the  drama  to  those  of  civil 
broil  and  tumult.  Moliere  then  quitted  the  capital 
for  the  south  of  France.  From  this  period,  1646  to 
1658,  his  history  presents  few  particulars  worthy  of 
record.  He  wandered  with  his  company  through 
the  different  provinces,  writing  a  few  farces  which 
have  long  since  perished,  performing  at  the  princi- 

A  A  A 


370  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

pal  cities,  and,  wherever  he  went,  by  his  superior 
talent  withdrawing  the  crowd  from  every  other  spec¬ 
tacle  to  the  exhibition  of  his  own.  During  this  pe¬ 
riod,  too,  he  was  busily  storing  his  mind  with  those 
nice  observations  of  men  and  manners  so  essential 
to  the  success  of  the  dramatist,  and  which  were  to 
ripen  there  until  a  proper  time  for  their  development 
should  arrive.  At  the  town  of  Pezenas  they  still 
show  an  elbow-chair  of  Moliere’s  (as  at  Montpelier 
they  show  the  gown  of  Rabelais),  in  which  the  poet, 
it  is  said,  ensconced  in  a  corner  of  a  barber’s  shop, 
would  sit  for  the  hour  together,  silently  watching  the 
air,  gestures,  and  grimaces  of  the  village  politicians, 
who,  in  those  days,  before  coffee-houses  were  intro¬ 
duced  into  France,  used  to  congregate  in  this  place 
of  resort.  The  fruits  of  this  study  may  be  easily 
discerned  in  those  original  draughts  of  character 
from  the  middling  and  lower  classes  with  which  his 
pieces  everywhere  abound. 

In  the  south  of  France  he  met  with  the  Prince  of 
Conti,  with  whom  he  had  contracted  a  friendship  at 
the  college  of  Clermont,  and  who  received  him  with 
great  hospitality.  The  prince  pressed  upon  him  the 
office  of  his  private  secretary  ;  but,  fortunately  for  let¬ 
ters,  Moliere  was  constant  in  his  devotion  to  the 
drama,  assigning  as  his  reason  that  “the  occupation 
was  of  too  serious  a  complexion  to  suit  his  taste  ; 
and  that,  though  he  might  make  a  passable  author, 
he  should  make  a  very  poor  secretary.”  Perhaps 
he  was  influenced  in  this  refusal,  also,  by  the  fate  of 
the  preceding  incumbent,  who  had  lately  died  of  a 


MOLIERE. 


371 


fever,  in  consequence  of  a  blow  from  the  fire-tongs, 
which  his  highness,  in  a  fit  of  ill  humour,  had  given 
him  on  the  temple.  However  this  may  be,  it  was 
owing  to  the  good  offices  of  the  prince  that  he  ob¬ 
tained  access  to  Monsieur,  the  only  brother  of  Louis 
the  Fourteenth,  and  father  of  the  celebrated  regent, 
Philip  of  Orleans,  who,  on  his  return  to  Paris  in 
1658,  introduced  him  to  the  king,  before  whom,  in 
the  month  of  October  following,  he  was  allowed, 
with  his  company,  to  perform  a  tragedy  of  Corneille’s 
and  one  of  his  own  farces. 

His  little  corps  was  now  permitted  to  establish 
itself  under  the  title  of  the  “  Company  of  Monsieur,” 
and  the  theatre  of  the  Petit-Bourbon  was  assigned 
as  the  place  for  its  performances.  Here,  in  the 
course  of  a  few  weeks,  he  brought  out  his  Etourdi 
and  Le  Depit  Amoureux ,  comedies  in  verse  and  in 
five  acts,  which  he  had  composed  during  his  provin¬ 
cial  pilgrimage,  and  which,  although  deficient  in  an 
artful  liaison  of  scenes  and  in  probability  of  inci¬ 
dent,  exhibit,  particularly  the  last,  those  fine  touches 
of  the  ridiculous,  which  revealed  the  future  author 
of  the  Tartuffe  and  the  Misanthrope.  They  indeed 
found  greater  favour  with  the  audience  than  some 
of  his  later  pieces  ;  for  in  the  former  they  could  only 
compare  him  with  the  wretched  models  that  had 
preceded  him,  while  in  the  latter  they  were  to  com¬ 
pare  him  with  himself. 

In  the  ensuing  year  Moliere  exhibited  his  celebra¬ 
ted  farce  of  Les  Precieuses  Ridicules ;  a  piece  in  only 
one  act,  but  which,  by  its  inimitable  satire,  effected 


372  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

such  a  revolution  in  the  literary  taste  of  his  country¬ 
men  as  has  been  accomplished  by  few  works  of  a 
more  imposing  form,  and  which  may  be  considered 
as  the  basis  of  the  dramatic  glory  of  Moliere,  and  the 
dawn  of  good  comedy  in  France.  This  epoch  was 
the  commencement  of  that  brilliant  period  in  French 
literature  which  is  so  well  known  as  the  age  of 
Louis  the  Fourteenth;  and  yet  it  was  distinguish¬ 
ed  by  such  a  puerile,  meretricious  taste,  as  is  rarely 
to  be  met  with  except  in  the  incipient  stages  of  civ¬ 
ilization,  or  in  its  last  decline.  The  cause  of  this 
melancholy  perversion  of  intellect  is  mainly  imputa¬ 
ble  to  the  influence  of  a  certain  coterie  of  wits,  whose 
rank,  talents,  and  successful  authorship  had  author¬ 
ized  them,  in  some  measure,  to  set  up  as  the  arbi¬ 
ters  of  taste  and  fashion.  This  choice  assembly, 
consisting  of  the  splenetic  Rochefoucault ;  the  bel- 
esprit  Voiture ;  Balzac,  whose  letters  afford  the  ear¬ 
liest  example  of  numbers  in  French  prose  ;  the  lively 
and  licentious  Bussy;  Rabutin;  Chapelain,  who,  as 
a  wit  has  observed,  might  still  have  had  a  reputation 
had  it  not  been  for  his  “  Pucelle the  poet  Bense- 
rade ;  Menage,  and  others  of  less  note  ;  together 
with  such  eminent  women  as  Madame  Lafayette, 
Mademoiselle  Scuderi  (whose  eternal  romances,  the 
delight  of  her  own  age,  have  been  the  despair  of 
every  other),  and  even  the  elegant  Sevigne,  was  ac¬ 
customed  to  hold  its  reunions  principally  at  the  Ho¬ 
tel  de  Rambouillet,  the  residence  of  the  marchioness 
of  that  name,  and  which,  from  this  circumstance,  has 
acquired  such  ill-omened  notoriety  in  the  history  of 
letters. 


MOLIERE. 


373 


Here  they  were  wont  to  hold  the  most  solemn 
discussions  on  the  most  frivolous  topics,  but  especi¬ 
ally  on  matters  relating  to  gallantry  and  love,  which 
they  debated  with  all  the  subtilty  and  metaphysical 
refinement  that  centuries  before  had  characterized 
the  romantic  Courts  of  Love  in  the  south  of  France. 
All  this  was  conducted  in  an  affected  jargon,  in  which 
the  most  common  things,  instead  of  being  called  by 
their  usual  names,  were  signified  by  ridiculous  peri¬ 
phrases  ;  which,  while  it  required  neither  wit  nor 
ingenuity  to  invent  them,  could  have  had  no  other 
merit,  even  in  their  own  eyes,  than  that  of  being  un¬ 
intelligible  to  the  vulgar.  To  this  was  superadded 
a  tone  of  exaggerated  sentiment,  and  a  ridiculous 
code  of  etiquette,  by  which  the  intercourse  of  these 
exclusives  was  to  be  regulated  with  each  other,  all 
borrowed  from  the  absurd  romances  of  Calprenede 
and  Scuderi.  Even  the  names  of  the  parties  under¬ 
went  a  metamorphosis,  and  Madame  de  Rambouil- 
let’s  Christian  name  of  Catherine  being  found  too 
trite  and  unpoetical,  was  converted  into  Arthenice , 
by  which  she  was  so  generally  recognised  as  to  be 
designated  by  it  in  Fiechier’s  eloquent  funeral  ora¬ 
tion  on  her  daughter.*  These  insipid  affectations, 
which  French  critics  are  fond  of  imputing  to  an 
Italian  influence,  savour  quite  as  much  of  the  Span¬ 
ish  cultismo  as  of  the  concetti  of  the  former  nation, 
and  may  be  yet  more  fairly  referred  to  the  same 

*  How  comes  La  Harpe  to  fall  into  the  error  of  supposing  that  Flechier 
referred  to  Madame  Montausier  by  this  epithet  of  Arthenice  1  The  bish¬ 
op’s  style  in  this  passage  is  as  unequivocal  as  usual.  See  Cours  de  Lit- 
terature ,  &c.,  tome  vi.,  p.  167. 


374  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

false  principles  of  taste  which  distinguished  the 
French  Pleiades  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  the 
more  ancient  compositions  of  their  Provencal  an¬ 
cestors.  Dictionaries  were  compiled,  and  treatises 
written  illustrative  of  this  precious  vocabulary  ;  all 
were  desirous  of  being  initiated  into  the  mysteries  of 
so  elegant  a  science :  even  such  men  as  Corneille  and 
Bossuet  did  not  disdain  to  frequent  the  saloons  where 
it  was  studied  ;  the  spirit  of  imitation,  more  active 
in  France  than  in  other  countries,  took  possession 
of  the  provinces ;  every  village  had  its  coterie  of 
precieuses  after  the  fashion  of  the  capital,  and  a  false 
taste  and  criticism  threatened  to  infect  the  very  sour¬ 
ces  of  pure  and  healthful  literature. 

It  was  against  this  fashionable  corruption  that 
Moliere  aimed  his  wit  in  the  little  satire  of  the 
“  Precieuses  Ridicules,”  in  which  the  valets  of  two 
noblemen  are  represented  as  aping  their  masters’ 
tone  of  conversation  for  the  purpose  of  imposing  on 
two  young  ladies  fresh  from  the  provinces,  and  great 
admirers  of  the  new  style.  The  absurdity  of  these 
affectations  is  still  more  strongly  relieved  by  the  con¬ 
temptuous  incredulity  of  the  father  and  servant,  who 
do  not  comprehend  a  word  of  them.  By  this  pro¬ 
cess  Moliere  succeeded  both  in  exposing  and  de¬ 
grading  these  absurd  pretensions,  as  he  showed  how 
opposite  they  were  to  common  sense,  and  how  ea¬ 
sily  they  were  to  be  acquired  by  the  most  vulgar 
minds.  The  success  was  such  as  might  have  been 
anticipated  on  an  appeal  to  popular  feeling,  where 
nature  must  always  triumph  over  the  arts  of  affecta- 


MOLIERE. 


375 


tion.  The  piece  was  welcomed  with  enthusiastic 
applause,  and  the  disciples  of  the  Hotel  Rambouillet , 
most  of  whom  were  present  at  the  first  exhibition, 
beheld  the  fine  fabric  which  they  had  been  so  pain¬ 
fully  constructing  brought  to  the  ground  by  a  single 
blow.  “And  these  follies,”  said  Menage  to  Chape- 
lain,  “  which  you  and  I  see  so  finely  criticised  here, 
are  what  we  have  been  so  long  admiring.  We 
must  go  home  and  burn  our  idols.”  “  Courage,  Mo¬ 
liere,”  cried  an  old  man  from  the  pit ;  “  this  is  gen¬ 
uine  comedy.”  The  price  of  the  seats  was  doubled 
from  the  time  of  the  second  representation.  Nor 
were  the  effects  of  the  satire  merely  transitory.  It 
converted  an  epithet  of  praise  into  one  of  reproach ; 
and  a  femme  precieuse,  a  style  precieux ,  a  ton  pre- 
cieux ,  once  so  much  admired,  have  ever  since  been 
used  only  to  signify  the  most  ridiculous  affectation. 

There  was,  in  truth,  however,  quite  as  much  luck 
as  merit  in  this  success  of  Moliere,  whose  produc¬ 
tion  exhibits  no  finer  raillery  or  better  sustained  di¬ 
alogue  than  are  to  be  found  in  many  of  his  subse¬ 
quent  pieces.  It  assured  him,  however,  of  his  own 
strength,  and  disclosed  to  him  the  mode  in  which 
he  should  best  hit  the  popular  taste.  “  I  have  no 
occasion  to  study  Plautus  or  Terence  any  longer,” 
said  he  ;  “  I  must  henceforth  study  the  world.”  The 
world,  accordingly,  was  his  study ;  and  the  exquisite 
models  of  character  which  it  furnished  him  will  last 
as  long  as  it  shall  endure. 

In  1660  he  brought  out  the  excellent  comedy  of 
the  Ecole  des  Maris ,  and  in  the  course  of  the  same 


376  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

month,  that  of  the  Facheux .  in  three  acts — compo¬ 
sed,  learned,  and  performed  within  the  brief  space 
of  a  fortnight ;  an  expedition  evincing  the  dexterity 
of  the  manager  no  less  than  that  of  the  author. 
This  piece  was  written  at  the  request  of  Fouquet, 
superintendent  of  finances  to  Louis  the  Fourteenth, 
for  the  magnificent  fete  at  Yaux,  given  by  him  to 
that  monarch,  and  lavishly  celebrated  in  the  me¬ 
moirs  of  the  period,  and  with  yet  more  elegance  in 
a  poetical  epistle  of  La  Fontaine  to  his  friend  De 
Maucroix.  This  minister  had  been  intrusted  with 
the  principal  care  of  the  finances  under  Cardinal 
Mazarine,  and  had  been  continued  in  the  same 
office  by  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  on  his  own  assump¬ 
tion  of  the  government.  The  monarch,  however, 
alarmed  at  the  growing  dilapidations  of  the  revenue, 
requested  from  the  superintendent  an  expose  of  its 
actual  condition,  which,  on  receiving,  he  privately 
communicated  to  Colbert,  the  rival  and  successor  of 
Fouquet.  The  latter,  whose  ordinary  expenditure 
far  exceeded  that  of  any  other  subject  in  the  king¬ 
dom,  and  who,  in  addition  to  immense  sums  occa¬ 
sionally  lost  at  play  and  daily  squandered  on  his 
debaucheries,  is  said  to  have  distributed  in  pensions 
more  than  four  millions  of  livres  annually,  thought 
it  would  be  an.  easy  matter  to  impose  on  a  young 
and  inexperienced  prince,  who  had  hitherto  shown 
himself  more  devoted  to  pleasure  than  business,  and 
accordingly  gave  in  false  returns,  exaggerating  the 
expenses,  and  diminishing  the  actual  receipts  of  the 
treasury.  The  detection  of  this  peculation  deter- 


MOLIERE. 


377 


mined  Louis  to  take  the  first  occasion  of  dismissing 
his  powerful  minister ;  but  his  ruin  was  precipitated 
and  completed  by  the  discovery  of  an  indiscreet 
passion  for  Madame  de  la  Valliere,  whose  fascinating 
graces  were  then  beginning  to  acquire  for  her  that 
ascendency  over  the  youthful  monarch  which  has 
since  condemned  her  name  to  such  unfortunate  ce¬ 
lebrity.  The  portrait  of  this  lady,  seen  in  the  apart¬ 
ments  of  the  favourite  on  the  occasion  to  which  we 
have  adverted,  so  incensed  Louis,  that  he  would 
have  had  him  arrested  on  the  spot  but  for  the  sea¬ 
sonable  intervention  of  the  queen-mother,  who  re¬ 
minded  him  that  Fouquet  was  his  host.  It  was  for 
this  fete  at  Vaux,  whose  palace  and  ample  domains, 
covering  the  extent  of  three  villages,  had  cost  their 
proprietor  the  sum,  almost  incredible  for  that  period, 
of  eighteen  million  livres,  that  Fouquet  put  in  re¬ 
quisition  all  the  various  talents  of  the  capital,  the 
dexterity  of  its  artists,  and  the  invention  of  its  finest 
poets.  He  was  particularly  lavish  in  his  prepara¬ 
tions  for  the  dramatic  portion  of  the  entertainment. 
Le  Brun  passed  for  a  while  from  his  victories  of 
Alexander  to  paint  the  theatrical  decorations  ;  To- 
relli  was  employed  to  contrive  the  machinery ;  Pe- 
lisson  furnished  the  prologue,  much  admired  in  its 
day,  and  Moliere  his  comedy  of  the  Facheux. 

This  piece,  the  hint  for  which  may  have  been 
suggested  by  Horace’s  ninth  satire,  lbam  forte  via 
Sacra ,  is  an  amusing  caricature  of  the  various  bores 
that  infest  society,  rendered  the  more  vexatious  by 
their  intervention  at  the  very  moment  when  a  young 

B  B  B 


378  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

lover  is  hastening  to  the  place  of  assignation  with 
his  mistress.  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  alter  the  per¬ 
formance,  seeing  his  master  of  the  hunts  near  him, 
M.  Soyecour,  a  personage  remarkably  absent,  and 
inordinately  devoted  to  the  pleasures  of  the  chase, 
pointed  him  out  to  Moliere  as  an  original  whom  he 
had  omitted  to  bring  upon  his  canvass.  The  poet 
took  the  hint,  and  the  following  day  produced  an 
excellent,  scene,  where  this  Nimrod  is  made  to  go 
through  the  technics  of  his  art,  in  which  he  had  him¬ 
self,  with  great  complaisance,  instructed  the  mis¬ 
chievous  satirist,  who  had  drawn  him  into  a  conver¬ 
sation  for  that  very  purpose  on  the  preceding  evening. 

This  play  was  the  origin  of  the  comedie-baliet ,  af¬ 
terward  so  popular  in  France.  The  residence  at 
Yaux  brought  Moliere  more  intimately  in  contact 
with  the  king  and  the  court  than  he  had  before  been ; 
and  from  this  time  may  be  dated  the  particular  en¬ 
couragement  which  he  ever  after  received  from  this 
prince,  and  which  eventually  enabled  him  to  triumph 
over  the  malice  of  his  enemies.  A  few  days  after  this 
magnificent  entertainment,  Fouquet  was  thrown  into 
prison,  where  he  was  suffered  to  languish  the  remain¬ 
der  of  his  days,  “  which,”  says  the  historian  from 
whom  we  have  gathered  these  details,  “  he  termina¬ 
ted  in  sentiments  of  the  most  sincere  piety  a  ter¬ 
mination  by  no  means  uncommon  in  France  with 
that  class  of  persons,  of  either  sex,  respectively,  who 
have  had  the  misfortune  to  survive  their  fortune  or 
their  beauty. 

*  Histoire  de  la  Vie,  &c.,  de  La  Fontaine,  par  M.  Valckenaer.  Paris, 
1824. 


MOLIERE. 


379 


In  February,  1662,  Moliere  formed  a  matrimonial 
connexion  with  Mademoiselle  Bejart,  a  young  co¬ 
median  of  his  company,  who  had  been  educated  un¬ 
der  his  own  eye,  and  whose  wit  and  captivating  gra¬ 
ces  had  effectually  ensnared  the  poet’s  heart,  but  for 
which  he  was  destined  to  perform  doleful  penance 
the  remainder  of  his  life.  The  disparity  of  their 
ages,  for  the  lady  was  hardly  seventeen,  might  have 
afforded  in  itself  a  sufficient  objection ;  and  he  had 
no  reason  to  flatter  himself  that  she  would  remain 
uninfected  by  the  pernicious  example  of  the  society 
in  which  she  had  been  educated,  and  of  which  he 
himself  was  not  altogether  an  immaculate  member. 
In  his  excellent  comedy  of  the  Ecole  des  Femmes , 
brought  forward  the  same  year,  the  story  turns  upon 
the  absurdity  of  an  old  man’s  educating  a  young 
woman  for  the  purpose,  at  some  future  time,  of  mar¬ 
rying  her,  which  wise  plan  is  defeated  by  the  un¬ 
seasonable  apparition  of  a  young  lover,  who  in  five 
minutes  undoes  what  it  had  cost  the  veteran  so 
many  years  to  contrive.  The  pertinency  of  this 
moral  to  the  poet’s  own  situation  shows  how  much 
easier  it  is  to  talk  wisely  than  to  act  so. 

This  comedy,  popular  as  it  was  on  its  represent¬ 
ation,  brought  upon  the  head  of  its  author  a  tempest 
of  parody,  satire,  and  even  slander,  from  those  of  his 
own  craft  who  were  jealous  of  his  unprecedented 
success,  and  from  those  literary  petit  s-maitres  who 
still  smarted  with  the  stripes  inflicted  on  them  in 
some  of  his  previous  performances.  One  of  this  lat¬ 
ter  class,  incensed  at  the  applauses  bestowed  upon 


380  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

the  piece  on  the  night  of  its  first  representation,  in¬ 
dignantly  exclaimed,  Ris  done ,  parterre  !  ris  done  ! 
“  Laugh  then,  pit,  if  you  will !”  and  immediately 
quitted  the  theatre. 

Moliere  was  not  slow  in  avenging  himself  of  these 
interested  criticisms,  by  means  of  a  little  piece  enti¬ 
tled  La  Critique  de  T E cole  des  Femmes ,  in  which  he 
brings  forward  the  various  objections  made  to  his 
comedy,  and  ridicules  them  with  unsparing  severity. 
These  objections  appear  to  have  been  chiefly  of  a 
verbal  nature.  A  few  such  familiar  phrases  as  Tarte 
a  la  creme ,  Enfans  par  V  or'eille,  &c.,  gave  particular 
offence  to  the  purists  of  that  day,  and,  in  the  prudish 
spirit  of  French  criticism,  have  since  been  condemn¬ 
ed  by  Voltaire  and  La  Harpe  as  unworthy  of  comedy. 
One  of  the  personages  introduced  into  the  Critique 
is  a  marquis,  who,  when  repeatedly  interrogated  as 
to  the  nature  of  his  objections  to  the  comedy,  has  no 
other  answer  to  make  than  by  his  eternal  Tarte  a  la 
creme .  The  Due  de  Feuillade,  a  coxcomb  of  little 
brains  but  great  pretension,  was  the  person  gener¬ 
ally  supposed  to  be  here  intended.  The  peer,  une¬ 
qual  to  an  encounter  of  wits  w  ith  his  antagonist,  re¬ 
sorted  to  a  coarser  remedy.  Meeting  Moliere  one 
day  in  the  gallery  at  Versailles,  he  advanced  as  if  to 
embrace  him ;  a  civility  which  the  great  lords  of 
that  day  occasionally  condescended  to  bestow  upon 
their  inferiors.  As  the  unsuspecting  poet  inclined 
himself  to  receive  the  salute,  the  duke,  seizing  his 
head  between  his  hands,  rubbed  it  briskly  against 
the  buttons  of  his  coat,  repeating,  at  the  same  time, 


MOLIERE. 


381 


Tarte  a  la  creme ,  Monsieur ,  tarte  a  la  creme .  The 
king,  on  receiving  intelligence  of  this  affront,  was 
highly  indignant,  and  reprimanded  the  duke  with 
great  asperity.  He,  at  the  same  time,  encouraged 
Moliere  to  defend  himself  with  his  own  weapons ; 
a  privilege  of  which  he  speedily  availed  himself,  in 
a  caustic  little  satire  in  one  act,  entitled  Impromptu 
ck  Versailles.  “  The  marquis,”  he  says  in  this  piece, 
“  is  nowadays  the  droll  (Je  plaisant)  of  the  comedy  ; 
and  as  our  ancestors  always  introduced  a  jester  to 
furnish  mirth  for  the  audience,  so  we  must  have  re¬ 
course  to  some  ridiculous  marquis  to  divert  them.” 

It  is  obvious  that  Moliere  could  never  have  main¬ 
tained  this  independent  attitude  if  he  had  not  been 
protected  by  the  royal  favour.  Indeed,  Louis  was 
constant  in  giving  him  this  protection ;  and  when, 
soon  after  this  period,  the  character  of  Moliere  was 
blackened  by  the  vilest  imputations,  the  monarch 
testified  his  conviction  of  his  innocence  by  publicly 
standing  godfather  to  his  child — a  tribute  of  respect 
equally  honourable  to  the  prince  and  the  poet.  The 
king,  moreover,  granted  him  a  pension  of  a  thousand 
livres  annually ;  and  to  his  company,  which  hence¬ 
forth  took  the  title  of  “  comedians  of  the  king,”  a 
pension  of  seven  thousand.  Our  author  received  his 
pension,  as  one  of  a  long  list  of  men  of  letters,  who 
experienced  a  similar  bounty  from  the  royal  hand. 
The  curious  estimate  exhibited  in  this  document  of 
the  relative  merits  of  these  literary  stipendiaries  af¬ 
fords  a  striking  evidence  that  the  decrees  of  contem¬ 
poraries  are  not  unfrequently  to  be  reversed  by  pos- 


382  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

terity.  The  obsolete  Chapelain  is  there  recorded 
“  as  the  greatest  French  poet  who  has  ever  existed 
in  consideration  of  which,  his  stipend  amounted  to 
three  thousand  livres,  while  Boileau’s  name,  for  which 
his  satires  had  already  secured  an  imperishable  exist¬ 
ence,  is  not  even  noticed  !  It  should  be  added,  how¬ 
ever,  on  the  authority  of  Boileau,  that  Chapelain 
himself  had  the  principal  hand  in  furnishing  this 
apocryphal  scale  of  merit  to  the  minister. 

In  the  month  of  September,  1665,  Moliere  pro¬ 
duced  his  LI  Amour  Medecin ,  a  comedie-ballet ,  in  three 
acts,  which,  from  the  time  of  its  conception  to  that 
of  its  performance,  consumed  only  five  days.  This 
piece,  although  displaying  no  more  than  his  usual 
talent  for  caustic  raillery,  is  remarkable  as  affording 
the  earliest  demonstration  of  those  direct  hostilities 
upon  the  medical  faculty,  which  he  maintained  at 
intervals  during  the  rest  of  his  life,  and  which  he 
may  be  truly  said  to  have  died  in  maintaining.  In 
this  he  followed  the  example  of  Montaigne,  who,  in 
particular,  devotes  one  of  the  longest  chapters  in  his 
work  to  a  tirade  against  the  profession,  which  he  en¬ 
forces  by  all  the  ingenuity  of  his  wit,  and  his  usual 
wealth  of  illustration.  In  this,  also,  Moliere  was 
subsequently  imitated  by  Le  Sage,  as  every  reader 
of  Gil  Bias  will  readily  call  to  mind.  Both  Mon¬ 
taigne  and  Le  Sage,  however,  like  most  other  libel¬ 
lers  of  the  healing  art,  were  glad  to  have  recourse 
to  it  in  the  hour  of  need.  Not  so  with  Moliere. 
His  satire  seems  to  have  been  without  affectation. 
Though  an  habitual  valetudinarian,  he  relied  almost 


MOLIERE. 


383 


wholly  on  the  temperance  of  his  diet  for  the  re-es¬ 
tablishment  of  his  health.  “  What  use  do  you  make 
of  your  physician  ?”  said  the  king  to  him  one  day. 
“  We  chat  together,  sire,”  said  the  poet;  “  he  gives 
me  his  prescriptions  ;  I  never  follow  them,  and  so  I 
get  well.” 

An  ample  apology  for  this  infidelity  may  be  found 
in  the  state  of  the  profession  at  that  day,  whose 
members  affected  to  disguise  a  profound  ignorance 
of  the  true  principles  of  science  under  a  pompous 
exterior,  which,  however  it  might  impose  upon  the 
vulgar,  could  only  bring  them  into  deserved  discredit 
with  the  better  portion  of  the  community.  The 
physicians  of  that  time  are  described  as  parading  the 
streets  of  Paris  on  mules,  dressed  in  a  long  robe  and 
bands,  holding  their  conversation  in  bad  Latin,  or,  it 
they  condescended  to  employ  the  vernacular,  mixing 
it  up  with  such  a  jargon  of  scholastic  phrase  and  sci¬ 
entific  technics  as  to  render  it  perfectly  unintelligible 
to  vulgar  ears.  The  following  lines,  cited  by  M. 
Taschereau,  and  written  in  good  earnest  at  the  time, 
seem  to  hit  off  most  of  these  peculiarities. 

“  Affecter  un  air  pedantesque, 

Cracher  du  Grec  et  du  Latin, 

Longue  perruque,  habit  grotesque, 

De  la  fourrure  et  du  satin, 

Tout  cela  reuni  fait  presque 
Ce  qu’on  appelle  un  medeein.”* 

*  A  gait  and  air  somewhat  pedantic, 

And  scarce  to  spit  but  Greek  or  Latin, 

A  long  peruke  and  habit  antic, 

Sometimes  of  fur,  sometimes  of  satin, 

Form  the  receipt  by  which  ’tis  showed 
How  to  make  doctors  d  la  mode. 


3S4  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

In  addition  to  these  absurdities,  the  physicians  of 
that  period  exposed  themselves  to  still  farther  deris¬ 
ion  by  the  contrariety  of  their  opinions,  and  the 
animosity  with  which  they  maintained  them.  The 
famous  consultation  in  the  case  of  Cardinal  Maza¬ 
rine  was  well  known  in  its  day  ;  one  of  his  four  medi¬ 
cal  attendants  affirming  the  seat  of  his  disorder  to  be 
the  liver,  another  the  lungs,  a  third  the  spleen,  and 
a  fourth  the  mesentery.  Moliere’s  raillery,  therefore, 
against  empirics,  in  a  profession  where  mistakes  are 
so  easily  made,  so  difficult  to  be  detected,  and  the 
only  one  in  which  they  are  irremediable,  stands 
abundantly  excused  from  the  censures  which  have 
been  heaped  upon  it.  Its  effects  were  visible  in  the 
reform  which,  in  his  own  time,  it  effected  in  their 
manners,  if  in  nothing  farther.  They  assumed  the 
dress  of  men  of  the  world,  and  gradually  adopted  the 
popular  forms  of  communication ;  an  essential  step 
to  improvement,  since  nothing  cloaks  ignorance  and 
empiricism  more  effectually  with  the  vulgar  than  an 
affected  use  of  learned  phrase  and  a  technical  vo¬ 
cabulary. 

We  are  now  arrived  at  that  period  of  Moliere’s 
career  when  he  composed  his  Misanthrope ,  a  play 
which  some  critics  have  esteemed  his  masterpiece, 
and  which  all  concur  in  admiring  as  one  of  the  no¬ 
blest  productions  of  the  modern  drama.  Its  literary 
execution,  too,  of  paramount  importance  in  the  eye 
of  a  French  critic,  is  more  nicely  elaborated  than  in 
any  other  of  the  pieces  of  Moliere,  if  we  except  the 
Tartuffe ,  and  its  didactic  dialogue  displays  a  matu- 


MOLIERE. 


385 


rity  of  thought  equal  to  what  is  found  in  the  best  sa¬ 
tires  of  Boileau.  It  is  the  very  didactic  tone  of  this 
comedy,  indeed,  which,  combined  with  its  want  of 
eager,  animating  interest,  made  it  less  popular  on  its 
representation  than  some  ol  his  inferior  pieces.  A 
circumstance  which  occurred  on  the  first  night  of  its 
performance  may  be  worth  noticing.  In  the  second 
scene  of  the  first  act,  a  man  of  fashion,  it  is  well 
known,  is  represented  as  soliciting  the  candid  opin¬ 
ion  of  Alceste  on  a  sonnet  of  bis  own  enditing,  though 
lie  flies  into  a  passion  with  him,  five  minutes  after, 
for  pronouncing  an  unfavourable  judgment.  This 
sonnet  was  so  artfully  constructed  by  Moliere,  with 
those  dazzling  epigrammatic  points  most  captivating 
to  common  ears,  that  the  gratified  audience  were 
loud  in  their  approbation  of  what  they  supposed  in¬ 
tended  in  good  faith  by  the  author.  How  great  was 
their  mortification,  then,  when  they  heard  Alceste 
condemn  the  whole  as  puerile,  and  fairly  expose  the 
false  principles  on  which  it  had  been  constructed. 
Such  a  rebuke  must  have  carried  more  weight  with 
it  than  a  volume  of  set  dissertation  on  the  principles 
of  taste. 

Rousseau  has  bitterly  inveighed  against  Moliere 
for  exposing  to  ridicule  the  hero  of  his  Misanthrope , 
a  high-minded  and  estimable  character.  It  was  told 
to  the  Due  de  Montausier,  well  known  for  his  aus¬ 
tere  virtue,  that  he  was  intended  as  the  original  of 
the  character.  Much  offended,  he  attended  a  rep¬ 
resentation  of  the  piece,  but,  on  returning,  declared 
that  “  he  dared  hardly  flatter  himself  the  poet  had 

C  c  c 


386  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

intended  him  so  great  an  honour.”  This  fact,  as  has 
been  well  intimated  by  La  Harpe,  furnishes  the  best 
reply  to  Rousseau’s  invective. 

The  relations  in  which  Moliere  stood  with  his 
wife  at  the  time  of  the  appearance  of  this  comedy 
gave  to  the  exhibition  a  painful  interest.  The  lev¬ 
ity  and  extravagance  of  this  lady  had  for  some  time 
transcended  even  those  liberal  limits  which  were 
conceded  at  that  day  by  the  complaisance  of  a 
French  husband,  and  they  deeply  affected  the  hap¬ 
piness  of  the  poet.  As  he  one  day  communicated 
the  subject  to  his  friend  Chapelle.  the  latter  strongly 
urged  him  to  confine  her  person  ;  a  remedy  much 
in  vogue  then  for  refractory  wives,  and  one,  certain¬ 
ly,  if  not  more  efficacious,  at  least  more  gallant  than 
the  “  moderate  flagellation”  authorized  by  the  Eng¬ 
lish  law.  He  remonstrated  on  the  folly  of  being 
longer  the  dupe  of  her  artifices.  “  Alas  !”  said  the 
unfortunate  poet  to  him,  “  you  have  never  loved !” 
A  separation,  however,  was  at  length  agreed  upon, 
and  it  was  arranged  that,  while  both  parties  occu¬ 
pied  the  same  house,  they  should  never  meet  except 
at  the  theatre.  The  respective  parts  which  they 
performed  in  this  piece  corresponded  precisely  with 
their  respective  situations :  that  of  Celimene ,  a  fas¬ 
cinating,  capricious  coquette,  insensible  to  every  re 
monstrance  of  her  lover,  and  selfishly  bent  on  the 
gratification  of  her  own  appetites  ;  and  that  of  Al- 
ceste ,  perfectly  sensible  of  the  duplicity  of  his  mis¬ 
tress,  whom  he  vainly  hopes  to  reform,  and  no  less 
so  of  the  unworthiness  of  his  own  passion,  from 


MOLIERE. 


387 


which  he  as  vainly  hopes  to  extricate  himself.  The 
coincidences  are  too  exact  to  be  considered  wholly 
accidental. 

If  Moliere  in  his  preceding  pieces  had  hit  the  fol¬ 
lies  and  fashionable  absurdities  of  the  age,  in  the 
Tartuffe  he  flew  at  still  higher  game,  the  most  odi¬ 
ous  of  all  vices,  religious  hypocrisy.  The  result 
showed  that  his  shafts  were  not  shot  in  the  dark. 
The  first  three  acts  of  the  Tartuffe ,  the  only  ones 
then  written,  made  their  appearance  at  the  memo¬ 
rable  fetes  known  under  the  name  of  “The  Pleasures 
of  the  Enchanted  Isle,”  given  by  Louis  the  Four¬ 
teenth  at  Versailles,  in  1664,  and  of  which  the  in¬ 
quisitive  reader  may  find  a  circumstantial  narrative 
in  the  twenty-fifth  chapter  of  Voltaire’s  history  of 
that  monarch.  The  only  circumstance  which  can 
give  them  a  permanent  value  with  posterity  is  their 
having  been  the  occasion  of  the  earliest  exhibition 
of  this  inimitable  comedy.  Louis  the  Fourteenth, 
who,  notwithstanding  the  defects  of  his  education, 
seems  to  have  had  a  discriminating  perception  of 
literary  beauty,  was  fully  sensible  of  the  merits  of 
this  production.  The  Tartuffes ,  however,  who  were 
present  at  the  exhibition,  deeply  stung  by  the  sar¬ 
casms  of  the  poet,  like  the  foul  birds  of  night  whose 
recesses  have  been  suddenly  invaded  by  a  glare  of 
light,  raised  a  fearful  cry  against  him,  until  Louis 
even,  whose  solicitude  for  the  interests  of  the  Church 
was  nowise  impaired  by  his  own  personal  derelic¬ 
tions,  complied  with  their  importunities  for  imposing 
a  prohibition  on  the  public  performance  of  the  play. 


388  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

It  was,  however,  privately  acted  in  the  presence 
of  Monsieur,  and  afterward  of  the  great  Conde. 
Copies  of  it  were  greedily  circulated  in  the  societies 
of  Paris;  and  although  their  unanimous  suffrage  was 
an  inadequate  compensation  to  the  author  for  the 
privations  he  incurred,  it  was  sufficient  to  quicken 
the  activity  of  the  false  zealots,  who,  under  the  mask 
of  piety,  assailed  him  with  the  grossest  libels.  One 
of  them  even  ventured  so  far  as  to  call  upon  the 
king  to  make  a  public  example  of  him  with  fire  and 
fagot ;  another  declared  that  it  would  be  an  offence 
to  the  Deity  to  allow  Moliere,  after  such  an  enor¬ 
mity,  “  to  participate  in  the  sacraments,  to  be  ad¬ 
mitted  to  confession,  or  even  to  enter  the  precincts 
of  a  church,  considering  the  anathemas  which  it 
had  fulminated  against  the  authors  of  indecent  and 
sacrilegious  spectacles  !”  Soon  after  his  sentence 
of  prohibition,  the  king  attended  the  performance 
of  a  piece  entitled  Scaramouche  Hermite,  a  piece 
abounding  in  passages  the  most  indelicate  and  pro¬ 
fane.  “  What  is  the  reason,”  said  he,  on  retiring,  to 
the  Prince  of  Conde,  “  that  the  persons  so  sensibly 
scandalized  at  Moliere’s  comedy  take  no  umbrage 
at  tins'?”  “Because,”  said  the  prince,  “the  latter 
only  attacks  religion,  while  the  former  attacks  them¬ 
selves:”  an  answer  which  may  remind  one  of  a 
remark  of  Bayle  in  reference  to  the  Decameron , 
which,  having  been  placed  on-  the  Index  on  account 
of  its  immorality,  was,  however,  allowed  to  be  pub¬ 
lished  in  an  edition  which  converted  the  names  of 
the  ecclesiastics  into  those  of  laymen  :  “ 


a  conces- 


MOLIERE. 


389 


sion,”  says  the  philosopher,  “  which  shows  the  priests 
to  have  been  much  more  solicitous  for  the  interests 
of  their  own  order  than  for  those  of  heaven.” 

Louis,  at  length  convinced  of  the  interested  mo¬ 
tives  of  the  enemies  of  the  Tartuffe ,  yielded  to  the 
importunities  of  the  public  and  removed  his  prohibi¬ 
tion  of  its  performance.  It  accordingly  was  repre¬ 
sented,  for  the  first  time  in  public,  in  August,  1667, 
before  an  overflowing  house,  extended  to  its  full 
complement  of  five  acts,  but  with  alterations  of  the 
names  of  the  piece,  the  principal  personages  in  it, 
and  some  of  its  most  obnoxious  passages.  It  was 
entitled  The  I/nposto r,  and  its  hero  was  styled  Pa- 
nulfe.  On  the  second  evening  of  the  performance, 
however,  an  interdict  arrived  from  the  president  of 
the  Parliament  against  the  repetition  of  the  perform¬ 
ance,  and,  as  the  king  had  left  Paris  in  order  to  join 
his  army  in  Flanders,  no  immediate  redress  was  to 
be  obtained.  It  was  not  until  two  years  later,  1669, 
that  the  Tartuffe ,  in  its  present  shape,  was  finally 
allowed  to  proceed  unmolested  in  its  representations. 
It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  add,  that  these  were  at¬ 
tended  with  the  most  brilliant  success  which  its  au¬ 
thor  could  have  anticipated,  and  to  which  the  in¬ 
trinsic  merits  of  the  piece,  and  the  unmerited  perse¬ 
cutions  he  had  undergone,  so  well  entitled  him. 
Forty-four  successive  representations  were  scarcely 
sufficient  to  satisfy  the  eager  curiosity  of  the  public  : 
and  his  grateful  company  forced  upon  Moliere  a 
double  share  of  the  profits  during  every  repetition 
of  its  performance  for  the  remainder  of  his  life.  Pos- 


390  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

terity  has  confirmed  the  decision  of  his  contempora¬ 
ries,  and  it  still  remains  the  most  admired  comedy 
of  the  French  theatre,  and  will  always  remain  so, 
says  a  native  critic,  “  as  long  as  taste  and  hypocrites 
shall  endure  in  France.” 

We  have  been  thus  particular  in  our  history  of 
these  transactions,  as  it  affords  one  of  the  most  in¬ 
teresting  examples  on  record  of  undeserved  persecu¬ 
tion  with  which  envy  and  party  spirit  have  assailed 
a  man  of  letters.  No  one  of  Moliere’s  compositions 
is  determined  by  a  more  direct  moral  aim  ;  nowhere 
has  he  stripped  the  mask  from  vice  with  a  more  in¬ 
trepid  hand  ;  nowhere  has  he  animated  his  discour¬ 
ses  with  a  more  sound  and  practical  piety.  It  should 
be  added,  injustice  to  the  French  clergy  of  that  pe¬ 
riod,  that  the  most  eminent  prelates  at  the  court  ac¬ 
knowledged  the  merits  of  this  comedy,  and  were 
strongly  in  favour  of  its  representation. 

It  is  generally  known  that  the  amusing  scene  in 
the  first  act,  where  Dorine  enlarges  so  eloquently  on 
the  good  cheer  which  Tartuffe  had  made  in  the  ab¬ 
sence  of  his  host,  was  suggested  to  Moliere  some 
years  previous  in  Lorraine,  by  a  circumstance  which 
took  place  at  the  table  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth, 
whom  Moliere  had  accompanied  in  his  capacity  of 
valet  de  chambre.  Perefixe,  bishop  of  Rhodez,  en¬ 
tering  while  the  king  was  at  his  evening  meal,  during 
Lent,  was  invited  by  him  to  follow  his  example  ;  but 
the  bishop  declined  on  the  ground  that  he  was  ac¬ 
customed  to  eat  only  once  during  the  days  of  vigil 
and  fast.  The  king,  observing  one  of  his  attendants 


MOLIERE. 


391 


to  smile,  inquired  of  him  the  reason  as  soon  as  the 
prelate  had  withdrawn.  The  latter  informed  his 
master  that  he  need  be  under  no  apprehensions  for 
the  health  of  the  good  bishop,  as  he  himself  had  as¬ 
sisted  at  bis  dinner  on  that  day,  and  then  recounted 
to  him  the  various  dishes  which  had  been  served  up. 
The  king,  who  listened  with  becoming  gravity  to 
the  narration,  uttered  an  exclamation  of  “  Poor  man !” 
at  the  specification  of  each  new  item,  varying  the 
tone  of  his  exclamation  in  such  a  manner  as  to  give 
it  a  highly  comic  effect.  The  humour  was  not  lost 
upon  our  poet,  who  has  transported  the  same  ejacu¬ 
lations,  with  much  greater  effect,  into  the  above-men¬ 
tioned  scene  of  his  play.  The  king,  who  did  not 
at  first  recognise  the  source  whence  he  had  derived 
it,  on  being  informed  of  it,  was  much  pleased,  if  we 
may  believe  M.  Taschereau,  in  finding  himself  even 
thus  accidentally  associated  with  the  work  of  a  man 
of  genius. 

In  1668  Moliere  brought  forward  his  Avare,  and 
in  the  following  year  his  amusing  comedy  of  the 
Bourgeois  Genlilhomme ,  in  which  the  folly  of  une¬ 
qual  alliances  is  successfully  ridiculed  and  exposed. 
This  play  was  first  represented  in  the  presence  of 
the  court  at  Chambord.  The  king  maintained  du¬ 
ring  its  performance  an  inscrutable  physiognomy, 
which  made  it  doubtful  what  might  be  his  real  sen¬ 
timents  respecting  it.  The  same  deportment  was 
maintained  by  him  during  the  evening  towards  the 
author,  who  was  in  attendance  in  his  capacity  of 
valet  de  chambre.  The  quick-eyed  courtiers,  the 


392  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

counts  and  marquises,  who  had  so  often  smarted  un¬ 
der  the  lash  of  the  poet,  construing  this  into  an  ex¬ 
pression  of  royal  disapprobation,  were  loud  in  their 
condemnation  of  him,  and  a  certain  duke  boldly  af¬ 
firmed  “  that  he  was  fast  sinking  into  his  second 
childhood,  and  that,  unless  some  better  writer  soon 
appeared,  French  comedy  would  degenerate  into 
mere  Italian  farce.”  The  unfortunate  poet,  unable 
to  catch  a  single  ray  of  consolation,  was  greatly  de¬ 
pressed  during  the  interval  of  five  days  which  pre¬ 
ceded  the  second  representation  of  his  piece  ;  on 
returning  from  which,  the  monarch  assured  him  that 
“  none  of  his  productions  had  afforded  him  greater 
entertainment,  and  that,  if  he  had  delayed  expressing 
his  opinion  on  the  preceding  night,  it  was  from  the 
apprehension  that  his  judgment  might  have  been  in¬ 
fluenced  by  the  excellence  of  the  acting.”  What¬ 
ever  we  may  think  of  this  exhibition  of  royal  caprice, 
we  must  admire  the  suppleness  of  the  courtiers,  one 
and  all  of  whom  straightway  expressed  their  full  con¬ 
viction  of  the  merits  of  the  comedy,  and  the  duke 
above  mentioned  added,  in  particular,  that  “  there 
was  a  vis  comica  in  all  that  Moliere  ever  wrote,  to 
which  the  ancients  could  furnish  no  parallel !”  What 
exquisite  studies  for  his  pencil  must  Moliere  not  have 
found  in  this  precious  assembly ! 

We  have  already  remarked  that  the  profession  of 
a  comedian  was  but  lightly  esteemed  in  France  at 
this  period.  Moliere  experienced  the  inconveniences 
resulting  from  this  circumstance  even  after  his  splen¬ 
did  literary  career  had  given  him  undoubted  claims 


MOLIERE. 


393 


to  consideration.  Most  of  our  readers,  no  doubt,  are 
acquainted  with  the  anecdote  of  Belloc,  an  agreea¬ 
ble  poet  of  the  court,  who,  on  hearing  one  of  the 
servants  in  the  royal  household  refuse  to  aid  the  au¬ 
thor  of  the  Tartuffe  in  making  the  king’s  bed,  cour¬ 
teously  requested  “  the  poet  to  accept  his  services  for 
that  purpose.”  Madame  Campan’s  anecdote  of  a 
similar  courtesy  on  the  part  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth 
is  also  well  known,  who,  when  several  of  these  func¬ 
tionaries  refused  to  sit  at  table  with  the  comedian, 
kindly  invited  him  to  sit  down  with  him,  and,  call¬ 
ing  in  some  of  his  principal  courtiers,  remarked  that 
“he  had  requested  the  pleasure  of  Moliere’s  compa¬ 
ny  at  his  own  table,  as  it  was  not  thought  quite  good 
enough  for  his  officers.”  This  rebuke  had  the  de¬ 
sired  effect  However  humiliating  the  reflection 
may  be,  that  genius  should  have,  at  any  time,  stood 
in  need  of  such  patronage,  it  is  highly  honourable  to 
the  monarch  who  could  raise  himself  so  far  above 
the  prejudices  of  his  age  as  to  confer  it. 

It  was  the  same  unworthy  prejudice  that  had  so 
long  excluded  Moliere  from  that  great  object  and 
recompense  of  a  French  scholar’s  ambition,  a  seat  in 
the  Academy  ;  a  body  affecting  to  maintain  a  jeal¬ 
ous  watch  over  the  national  language  and  literature, 
which  the  author  of  the  Misanthrope  and  the  Tar¬ 
tuffe ,  perhaps  more  than  any  other  individual  of  his 
age,  had  contributed  to  purify  and  advance.  Sen¬ 
sible  of  this  merit,  they  at  length  offered  him  a  place 
in  their  assembly,  provided  he  would  renounce  his 
profession  of  a  player,  and  confine  himself  in  future 

D  D  D 


394  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES 

to  his  literary  labours.  But  the  poet  replied  to  his 
friend  Boileau,  the  bearer  of  this  communication, 
that  “  too  many  individuals  of  his  company  depend¬ 
ed  on  his  theatrical  labours  for  support  to  allow  him 
for  a  moment  to  think  ol  it a  reply  ol  infinitely 
more  service  to  his  memory  than  all  the  academic 
honours  that  could  have  been  heaped  upon  him. 
This  illustrious  body,  however,  a  century  after  his 
decease,  paid  him  the  barren  compliment  (the  only 
one  then  in  their  power)  of  decreeing  to  him  an 
doge,  and  of  admitting  his  bust  within  their  walls, 
with  this  inscription  upon  it : 

“  Nothing  is  wanting  to  his  glory :  he  was  wanting  to  ours.” 

The  catalogue  of  Academicians  contemporary 
with  Moliere,  most  of  whom  now  rest  in  sweet  ob¬ 
livion,  or,  with  Cotin  and  Chapelain,  live  only  in  the 
satires  of  Boileau,  show's  that  it  is  as  little  in  the  pow¬ 
er  of  academies  to  confer  immortality  on  a  writer  as 
to  deprive  him  of  it. 

We  have  not  time  to  notice  the  excellent  comedy 
of  the  Femmes  Savantes,  and  some  inferior  pieces, 
written  by  our  author  at  a  later  period  of  his  life, 
and  must  hasten  to  the  closing  scene.  He  had  been 
long  affected  by  a  pulmonary  complaint,  and  it  was 
only  by  severe  temperance,  as  we  have  before  stated, 
that  he  was  enabled  to  preserve  even  a  moderate  de¬ 
gree  of  health.  At  the  commencement  of  the  year 
1673,  his  malady  sensibly  increased.  At  this  very 
season  he  composed  his  Malacle  Imaginaire — the 
most  whimsical,  and,  perhaps,  the  most  amusing  of 
the  compositions  in  which  he  has  indulged  his  rail- 


MOLIERE. 


395 


lery  against  the  faculty.  On  the  seventeenth  of  Feb¬ 
ruary,  being  the  day  appointed  for  its  fourth  repre¬ 
sentation,  his  friends  would  have  dissuaded  him  from 
appearing,  in  consequence  of  his  increasing  indis¬ 
position  ;  ’  but  lie  persisted  in  his  design,  alleging 
“that  more  than  fifty  poor  individuals  depended  for 
their  daily  bread  on  its  performance.”  His  life  fell  a 
sacrifice  to  his  benevolence.  The  exertions  which 
he  was  compelled  to  make  in  playing  the  principal 
part  of  Argan  aggravated  his  distemper,  and  as  he 
was  repeating  the  word  juro  in  the  concluding  cer¬ 
emony,  he  fell  into  a  convulsion,  which  he  vainly 
endeavoured  to  disguise  from  the  spectators  under  a 
forced  smile.  He  was  immediately  carried  to  his 
house  in  the  Rue  de  Richelieu ,  now  No.  34.  A  vio¬ 
lent  fit  of  coughing,  on  his  arrival,  occasioned  the 
rupture  of  a  blood-vessel ;  and  seeing  his  end  ap¬ 
proaching,  he  sent  for  two  ecclesiastics  of  the  parish 
of  St.  Eustace,  to  which  he  belonged,  to  administer 
to  him  the  last  offices  of  religion.  But  these  worthy 
persons  refused  their  assistance  ;  and  before  a  third, 
who  had  been  sent  for,  could  arrive,  Moliere,  suffo¬ 
cated  with  the  effusion  of  blood,  had  expired  in  the 
arms  of  his  family. 

Harlay  de  Champ valon,  at  that  time  archbishop 
of  Paris,  refused  the  rites  of  sepulture  to  the  deceas¬ 
ed  poet  because  he  was  a  comedian,  and  had  had  the 
misfortune  to  die  without  receiving  the  sacraments, 
This  prelate  is  conspicuous,  even  in  the  chronicles 
of  that  period,  for  his  bold  and  infamous  debaucher¬ 
ies.  It  is  of  him  that  Madame  de  Sevigne  observes, 


396  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


in  one  of  her  letters :  “  There  are  two  little  incon¬ 
veniences  which  make  it  difficult  for  any  one  to  un¬ 
dertake  his  funeral  oration — his  life  and  his  death.” 
Father  Gaillard,  who  at  length  consented  to  under¬ 
take  it,  did  so  on  the  condition  that  he  should  not  be 
required  to  say  anything  of  the  character  of  the  de¬ 
ceased.  The  remonstrance  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth 
having  induced  this  person  to  remove  his  interdict, 
he  privately  instructed  the  curate  of  St.  Eustace  not 
to  allow  the  usual  service  for  the  dead  to  be  recited 
at  the  interment.  On  the  day  appointed  for  this  cer¬ 
emony,  a  number  of  the  rabble  assembled  before  the 
deceased  poet’s  door,  determined  to  oppose  it.  “  They 
knew  only,”  says  Voltaire,  “that  Moliere  was  a  co¬ 
median,  but  did  not  know  that  he  was  a  philosopher 
and  a  great  man.”  They  had,  more  probably,  been 
collected  together  by  the  Tartufifes,  his  unforgiving 
enemies.  The  widow  of  the  poet  appeased  these 
wretches  by  throwing  money  to  them  from  the  win¬ 
dows.  In  the  evening,  the  body,  escorted  by  a  pro¬ 
cession  of  about  a  hundred  individuals,  the  friends 
and  intimate  acquaintances  of  the  deceased  poet, 
each  of  them  bearing  a  flambeau  in  his  hand,  was 
quietly  deposited  in  the  cemetery  of  St.  Joseph,  with¬ 
out  the  ordinary  chant,  or  service  of  any  kind.  It 
was  not  thus  that  Paris  followed  to  the  tomb  the 
remains  of  her  late  distinguished  comedian,  T alma. 
Yet  Talma  was  only  a  comedian,  while  Moliere,  in 
addition  to  this,  had  the  merit  of  being  the  most  em¬ 
inent  comic  writer  whom  France  had  ever  produced. 
The  different  degree  of  popular  civilization  which 


MOLIERE. 


397 


this  difference  of  conduct  indicates  may  afford  a  sub¬ 
ject  of  contemplation  by  no  means  unpleasing  to  the 
philanthropist. 

In  the  year  1792,  during  that  memorable  period  in 
France  when  an  affectation  of  reverence  for  their 
illustrious  dead  was  strangely  mingled  with  the  per¬ 
secution  of  the  living,  the  Parisians  resolved  to  ex¬ 
hume  the  remains  of  La  Fontaine  and  Moliere,  in 
order  to  transport  them  to  a  more  honourable  place 
of  interment.  Of  the  relics  thus  obtained,  it  is  cer¬ 
tain  that  no  portion  belonged  to  La  Fontaine,  and 
it  is  extremely  probable  that  none  did  to  Moliere. 
Whosesoever  they  may  have  been,  they  did  not  re¬ 
ceive  the  honours  for  which  their  repose  had  been 
disturbed.  With  the  usual  fickleness  of  the  period, 
they  were  shamefully  transferred  from  one  place  to 
another,  or  abandoned  to  neglect  for  seven  years, 
when  the  patriotic  conservator  of  the  Monumens 
Frangais  succeeded  in  obtaining  them  for  his  collec¬ 
tion  at  the  Petits  Augustins.  On  the  suppression  of 
this  institution  in  1817,  the  supposed  ashes  of  the 
two  poets  were,  for  the  last  time,  transported  to  the 
spacious  cemetery  of  Pere  de  la  Chaise ,  where  the 
tomb  of  the  author  of  the  Tartuffe  is  designated  by 
an  inscription  in  Latin,  which,  as  if  to  complete  the 
scandal  of  the  proceedings,  is  grossly  mistaken  in  the 
only  fact  which  it  pretends  to  record,  namely,  the 
age  of  the  poet  at  the  time  of  his  decease. 

Moliere  died  soon  after  entering  upon  his  fifty- 
second  year.  He  is  represented  to  have  been  some¬ 
what  above  the  middle  stature,  and  well  proportion- 


398  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ed ;  his  features  large,  his  complexion  dark,  and  his 
black,  bushy  eyebrows  so  flexible  as  to  admit  of  his 
giving  an  infinetely  comic  expression  to  his  physiog¬ 
nomy.  He  was  the  best  actor  of  his  own  genera¬ 
tion,  and,  by  his  counsels,  formed  the  celebrated 
Baron,  the  best  of  the  succeeding.  He  played  all 
the  range  of  his  own  characters,  from  Alceste  to  Sga- 
narelle,  though  he  seems  to  have  been  peculiarly 
fitted  for  broad  comedy.  He  composed  with  rapid¬ 
ity,  for  which  Boileau  has  happily  complimented 
him : 

“Rare  et  sublime  esprit,  dont  la  fertile  vein 
Ignore  en  ecrivant  le  travail  et  la  peine.” 

Unlike  in  this  to  Boileau  himself,  and  to  Racine, 
the  former  of  whom  taught  the  latter,  if  we  may 
credit  his  son,  “  the  art  of  rhyming  with  difficulty.” 
Of  course,  the  verses  of  Moliere  have  neither  the  cor¬ 
rectness  nor  the  high  finish  of  those  of  his  two  illus¬ 
trious  rivals. 

He  produced  all  his  pieces,  amounting  to  thirty, 
in  the  short  space  of  fifteen  years.  He  was  in  the 
habit  of  reading  these  to  an  old  female  domestic  by 
the  name  of  La  Foret,  on  whose  unsophisticated 
judgment  he  greatly  relied.  On  one  occasion,  when 
he  attempted  to  impose  upon  her  the  production  of 
a  brother  author,  she  plainly  told  him  that  he  had 
never  written  it.  Sir  Walter  Scott  may  have  had 
this  habit  of  Moliere’s  in  his  mind  when  he  introdu¬ 
ced  a  similar  expedient  into  his  “  Chronicles  of  the 
Canongate.”  For  the  same  reason,  our  poet  used  to 
request  the  comedians  to  bring  their  children  with 


MOLIERE. 


399 


them  when  lie  recited  a  new  play.  The  peculiar 
advantage  of  this  humble  criticism  in  dramatic  com¬ 
positions  is  obvious.  Alfieri  himself,  as  he  informs 
us,  did  not  disdain  to  resort  to  it. 

Moliere’s  income  was  very  ample,  probably  not  less 
than  twenty-five  or  thirty  thousand  francs — an  im¬ 
mense  sum  for  that  day — yet  he  left  but  little  prop¬ 
erty.  The  expensive  habits  of  his  wife  and  his  own 
liberality  may  account  for  it.  One  example  of  this 
is  worth  recording,  as  having  been  singularly  oppor¬ 
tune  and  well  directed.  When  Racine  came  up  to 
Paris  as  a  young  adventurer,  he  presented  to  Moliere 
a  copy  of  his  first  crude  tragedy,  long  since  buried  in 
oblivion.  The  latter  discerned  in  it,  amid  all  its  im¬ 
perfections,  the  latent  spark  of  dramatic  genius,  and 
he  encouraged  its  author  by  the  present  of  a  hundred 
Louis.  This  was  doing  better  for  him  than  Corneille 
did,  who  advised  the  future  author  of  Phedre  to  aban¬ 
don  the  tragic  walk,  and  to  devote  himself  altogether 
to  comedy.  Racine  recompensed  this  benefaction 
of  his  friend,  at  a  later  period  of  his  life,  by  quarrelling 
with  him. 

Moliere  was  naturally  of  a  reserved  and  taciturn 
temper,  insomuch  that  his  friend  Boileau  used  to 
call  him  the  Contemplateur.  Strangers  who  had  ex¬ 
pected  to  recognise  in  his  conversation  the  sallies  of 
wit  which  distinguished  his  dramas,  went  away  dis¬ 
appointed.  The  same  thing  is  related  of  La  Fon¬ 
taine.  The  truth  is,  that  Moliere  went  into  society 
as  a  spectator,  not  as  an  actor ;  he  found  there  the 
studies  for  the  characters  which  he  was  to  transport 


400  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

upon  the  stage,  and  he  occupied  himself  with  observ¬ 
ing  them.  The  dreamer,  La  Fontaine,  lived,  too,  in 
a  world  of  his  own  creation.  His  friend,  Madame 
de  la  Sabliere,  paid  to  him  this  untranslatable  com¬ 
pliment :  “  En  verite,  mon  clier  La  Fontaine,  vous 
seriez  bien  bete,  si  vous  n’aviez  pas  tant  d’esprit.” 
These  unseasonable  reveries  brought  him,  it  may  be 
imagined,  into  many  whimsical  adventures.  The 
great  Corneille,  too,  was  distinguished  by  the  same 
apathy.  A  gentleman  dined  at  the  same  table  with 
him  for  six  months  without  suspecting  the  author  of 
the  “  Cid.” 

The  literary  reputation  of  Moliere,  and  his  ami¬ 
able  personal  endowments,  naturally  led  him  into  an 
intimacy  with  the  most  eminent  wits  of  the  golden 
age  in  which  he  lived,  but  especially  with  Boileau, 
La  Fontaine,  and  Racine;  and  the  confidential  in¬ 
tercourse  of  these  great  minds,  and  their  frequent  re¬ 
unions  for  the  purposes  of  social  pleasure,  bring  to 
mind  the  similar  associations  at  the  Mermaid s,  Will’s 
Coffee-house ,  and  Button’s ,  which  form  so  pleasing  a 
picture  in  the  annals  of  English  literature.  It  was 
common  on  these  occasions  to  have  a  volume  of  the 
unfortunate  Chapelain’s  epic,  then  in  popular  repute, 
lie  open  upon  the  table,  and  if  one  of  the  party  fell 
into  a  grammatical  blunder,  to  impose  upon  him  the 
reading  of  some  fifteen  or  twenty  verses  of  it :  “a 
whole  page,”  says  Louis  Racine,  “  was  sentence  of 
death.”  La  Fontaine,  in  his  Psyche ,  has  painted 
his  reminiscences  of  these  happy  meetings  in  the  col¬ 
ouring  of  fond  regret;  where,  “freely  discussing  such 


i 


MOLIERE. 


401 


topics  of  general  literature  or  personal  gossip  as  might 
arise,  they  touched  lightly  upon  all,  like  bees  passing 
on  from  flower  to  flower,  criticising  the  works  of 
others  without  envy,  and  of  one  another,  when  any 
one  chanced  to  fall  into  the  malady  of  the  age,  with 
frankness.”  Alas !  that  so  rare  a  union  of  minds, 
destined  to  live  together  through  all  ages,  should  have 
been  dissolved  by  the  petty  jealousies  incident  to 
common  men. 

In  these  assemblies  frequent  mention  is  made  of 
Chapelle,  the  most  intimate  friend  of  Moliere,  whose 
agreeable  verses  are  read  with  pleasure  in  our  day, 
and  whose  cordial  manners  and  sprightly  conversa¬ 
tion  made  him  the  delight  of  his  own.  His  mercu¬ 
rial  spirits,  however,  led  him  into  too  free  an  indul¬ 
gence  of  convivial  pleasures,  and  brought  upon  him 
the  repeated,  though  unavailing  remonstrances  of  his 
friends.  On  one  of  these  occasions,  as  Boileau  was 
urging  upon  him  the  impropriety  of  this  indulgence, 
and  its  inevitable  consequences,  Chapelle,  who  re¬ 
ceived  the  admonition  with  great  contrition,  invited 
his  Mentor  to  withdraw  from  the  public  street  in 
wrhich  they  were  then  walking  into  a  neighbouring 
house,  where  they  could  talk  over  the  matter  with 
less  interruption.  Here  wdne  was  called  for,  and,  in 
the  warmth  of  discussion,  a  second  bottle  being  soon 
followed  by  a  third,  both  parties  at  length  found  them¬ 
selves  in  a  condition  which  made  it  advisable  to  ad¬ 
journ  the  lecture  to  a  more  fitting  occasion. 

Moliere  enjoyed  also  the  closest  intimacy  with  the 
great  Conde,  the  most  distinguished  ornament  of  the 

E  E  E 


402  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

court  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth;  to  such  ail  extent, 
indeed,  that  the  latter  directed  that  the  poet  should 
never  be  refused  admission  to  him,  at  whatever  hour 
he  might  choose  to  pay  his  visit.  His  regard  for  his 
friend  was  testified  by  his  remark,  rather  more  can¬ 
did  than  courteous,  to  an  abbe  of  his  acquaintance, 
who  had  brought  him  an  epitaph  of  his  own  writing 
upon  the  deceased  poet.  “Would  to  Heaven,”  said 
the  prince,  “that  he  were  in  a  condition  to  bring  me 
yours !” 

We  have  already  wandered  beyond  the  limits 
which  we  had  assigned  to  ourselves  for  an  abstract 
of  Moliere’s  literary  labours,  and  of  the  most  interest¬ 
ing  anecdotes  in  his  biography.  Without  entering, 
therefore,  into  a  criticism  on  his  writings,  of  which 
the  public  stand  in  no  need,  we  shall  dismiss  the  sub¬ 
ject  with  a  few  brief  reflections  on  their  probable  in¬ 
fluence,  and  on  the  design  of  the  author  in  producing 
them. 

The  most  distinguished  French  critics,  with  the 
overweening  partiality  in  favour  of  their  own  nation, 
so  natural  and  so  universal,  placing  Moliere  by  com¬ 
mon  consent  at  the  head  of  their  own  comic  writers, 
have  also  claimed  for  him  a  pre-eminence  over  those 
of  every  other  age  and  country.  A.  W.  Schlegel,  a 
very  competent  judge  in  these  matters,  has  degraded 
him,  on  the  other  hand,  from  the  walks  of  high  com¬ 
edy  to  the  writer  of  “buffoon  farces,  for  which  his 
genius  and  inclination  seem  to  have  essentially  fitted 
him  adding,  moreover,  that  “his  characters  are  not 
drawn  from  nature,  but  from  the  fleeting  and  super- 


MOLIERE. 


403 


ficial  forms  of  fashionable  life.”  This  is  a  hard  sen¬ 
tence,  accommodated  to  the  more  forcible  illustration 
of  the  peculiar  theory  which  the  German  writer  has 
avowed  throughout  his  work,  and  which,  however 
reasonable  in  its  first  principles,  has  led  him  into  as 
exaggerated  an  admiration  of  the  romantic  models 
which  he  prefers,  as  disparagement  of  the  classical 
school  which  he  detests.  It  is  a  sentence,  moreover, 
upon  which  some  eminent  critics  in  his  own  coun¬ 
try,  who  support  his  theory  in  the  main,  have  taken 
the  liberty  to  demur. 

That  a  large  proportion  of  Moliere’s  pieces  are 
conceived  in  a  vein  of  broad,  homely  merriment, 
rather  than  in  that  of  elevated  comedy,  abounding  in 
forced  situations,  high  caricature,  and  practical  jokes; 
in  the  knavish,  intriguing  valets  of  Plautus  and  Ter¬ 
ence  ;  in  a  compound  of  that  good-nature  and  irri¬ 
tability,  shrewdness  and  credulity,  which  make  up 
the  dupes  of  Aristophanes,  is  very  true  ;  but  that  a 
writer,  distinguished  by  his  deep  reflection,  his  pure 
taste,  and  nice  observation  of  character,  should  have 
preferred  this  to  the  higher  walks  of  his  art,  is  abso¬ 
lutely  incredible.  He  has  furnished  the  best  justifi¬ 
cation  of  himself  in  an  apology,  which  a  contempo¬ 
rary  biographer  reports  him  to  have  made  to  some 
one  who  censured  him  on  this  very  ground  :  “  If  I 
wrote  simply  for  fame,”  said  he,  “  I  should  manage 
very  differently ;  but  I  write  for  the  support  of  my 
company.  I  must  not  address  myself,  therefore,  to  a 
few  people  of  education,  but  to  the  mob.  And  this 
latter  class  of  gentry  take  very  little  interest  in  a 


404  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

continued  elevation  of  style  and  sentiment.”  With 
all  these  imperfections  and  lively  absurdities,  howev¬ 
er,  there  is  scarcely  one  of  Moliere’s  minor  pieces 
which  does  not  present  us  with  traits  of  character 
that  come  home  to  every  heart,  and  felicities  of  ex¬ 
pression  that,  from  their  truth,  have  come  to  be  pro¬ 
verbial. 

With  regard  to  the  objection  that  his  characters 
are  not  so  much  drawn  from  nature  as  from  the  lo¬ 
cal  manners  of  the  age,  if  it  be  meant  that  they  are 
not  acted  upon  by  those  deep  passions  which  engross 
the  whole  soul,  and  which,  from  this  intensity,  have 
more  of  a  tragic  than  a  comic  import  in  them,  but 
are  rather  drawn  from  the  foibles  and  follies  of  ordi¬ 
nary  life,  it  is  true  ;  but  then  these  last  are  likely  to 
be  quite  as  permanent,  and,  among  civilized  nations, 
quite  as  universal  as  the  former.  And  who  has  ex¬ 
posed  them  with  greater  freedom,  or  with  a  more 
potent  ridicule  than  Moliere  ?  Love,  under  all  its 
thousand  circumstances,  its  quarrels,  and  reconcilia¬ 
tions  ;  vanity,  humbly  suing  for  admiration  under  the 
guise  of  modesty ;  whimsical  contradictions  of  pro¬ 
fession  and  habitual  practice;  the  industry  with  which 
the  lower  classes  ape,  not  the  virtues,  but  the  follies 
of  their  superiors  ;  the  affectation  of  fashion,  taste, 
science,  or  anything  but  what  the  party  actually  pos¬ 
sesses  ;  the  esprit  de  corps ,  which  leads  us  to  feel  an 
exalted  respect  for  our  own  profession,  and  a  sover¬ 
eign  contempt  for  every  other;  the  friendly  adviser, 
who  has  an  eye  to  his  own  interest ;  the  author,  who 
seeks  your  candid  opinion,  and  quarrels  with  you 


MOLIERE. 


405 


when  you  have  given  it';  the  fair  friend,  who  kindly 
sacrifices  your  reputation  for  a  jest ;  the  hypocrite, 
under  every  aspect,  who  deceives  the  world  or  him¬ 
self — these  form  the  various  and  motley  panorama  of 
character  which  Moliere  has  transferred  to  his  can¬ 
vass,  and  which,  though  mostly  drawn  from  cultiva¬ 
ted  life,  must  endure  as  long  as  society  shall  hold 
together. 

Indeed,  Moliere  seems  to  have  possessed  all  the 
essential  requisites  for  excelling  in  genteel  comedy : 
a  pure  taste,  an  acute  perception  of  the  ridiculous, 
the  tone  of  elegant  dialogue,  and  a  wit  brilliant  and 
untiring  as  Congreve’s,  but  which,  instead  of  wast¬ 
ing  itself  like  his,  in  idle  flashes  of  merriment,  is  uni¬ 
formly  directed  with  a  moral  or  philosophical  aim. 
This  obvious  didactic  purpose,  in  truth,  has  been 
censured  as  inconsistent  with  the  spirit  of  the  drama, 
and  as  belonging  rather  to  satire  ;  but  it  secured  to 
him  an  influence  over  the  literature  and  the  opinions 
of  his  own  generation  which  has  been  possessed  by 
no  other  comic  writer  of  the  moderns. 

He  was  the  first  to  recall  his  countrymen  from 
the  vapid  hyperbole  and  puerile  conceits  of  the  an¬ 
cient  farces,  and  to  instruct  them  in  the  maxim 
which  Boileau  has  since  condensed  into  a  memora¬ 
ble  verse,  that  “  nothing  is  beautiful  but  what  is  nat¬ 
ural.”  We  have  already  spoken  of  the  reformation 
which  one  of  his  early  pieces  effected  in  the  admi¬ 
rers  of  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet  and  its  absurdities  ; 
and  when  this  confederacy  afterward  rallied  under 
an  affectation  of  science,  as  it  had  before  done  of 


406  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

letters,  lie  again  broke  it  with  his  admirable  satire 
of  the  Femmes  Savanles.  We  do  not  recollect  any 
similar  revolution  effected  by  a  single  effort  of  genius, 
unless  it  be  that  brought  about  by  the  Baviad  and 
Mceviad .  But  Mr.  Gifford,  in  the  Della- Cruscan 
school,  but  “  broke  a  butterfly  upon  the  wheel,”  in 
comparison  with  those  enemies,  formidable  by  rank 
and  talent,  whom  Moliere  assailed.  We  have  no¬ 
ticed,  in  its  proper  place,  the  influence  which  his 
writings  had  in  compelling  the  medical  faculty  of 
his  day  to  lay  aside  the  affected  deportment,  tech¬ 
nical  jargon,  and  other  mummeries  then  in  vogue, 
by  means  of  the  public  derision  to  which  he  had 
deservedly  exposed  them.  In  the  same  manner,  he 
so  successfully  ridiculed  the  miserable  dialectics, 
pedantry,  and  intolerance  of  the  schoolmen,  in  his 
diverting  dialogues  between  Dr.  Marphurius  and  Dr. 
Pancrace ,  that  be  is  said  to  have  completely  defeat¬ 
ed  the  serious  efforts  of  the  University  for  obtaining 
a  confirmation  of  the  decree  of  1624,  which  had 
actually  prohibited,  under  pain  of  death,  the  promul¬ 
gation  of  any  opinion  contrary  to  the  doctrines  of 
Aristotle.  The  arret  burlesque  of  his  friend  Boileau, 
at  a  later  period,  if  we  may  trust  the  Menagiana , 
had  a  principal  share  in  preventing  a  decree  of  the 
Parliament  against  the  philosophy  of  Descartes.  It 
is  difficult  to  estimate  the  influence  of  our  poet’s  sa¬ 
tire  on  the  state  of  society  in  general,  and  on  those 
higher  ranks  in  particular  whose  affectations  and 
pretensions  he  assailed  with  such  pertinacious  hos¬ 
tility.  If  he  did  not  reform  them,  he  at  least  depri- 


MOLIERE. 


407 


ved  them  of  their  fascination  and  much  of  their  mis¬ 
chievous  influence,  by  holding  them  up  to  the  con¬ 
tempt  and  laughter  of  the  public.  Sometimes,  it 
must  be  admitted,  though  very  rarely,  in  effecting 
this  object,  he  so  far  transgressed  the  bounds  of  de¬ 
corum  as  to  descend  even  to  personalities. 

From  this  view  of  the  didactic  purpose  proposed 
by  Moliere  in  his  comedies,  it  is  obviously  difficult 
to  institute  a  comparison  between  them  and  those 
of  our  English  dramatists,  or,  rather,  of  Shakspeare, 
who  may  be  taken  as  their  representative.  The 
latter  seems  to  have  had  no  higher  end  in  view  than 
mere  amusement ;  he  took  a  leaf  out  of  the  great 
volume  of  human  nature  as  he  might  find  it ;  nor 
did  he  accommodate  it  to  the  illustration  of  any 
moral  or  literary  theorem.  The  former,  on  the  oth¬ 
er  hand,  manifests  such  a  direct  perceptive  purpose 
as  to  give  to  some  of  his  pieces  the  appearance  of 
satires  rather  than  of  comedies  ;  argument  takes 
place  of  action,  and  the  pro  and  con  of  the  matter 
are  discussed  with  all  the  formality  of  a  school  ex¬ 
ercise.  This  essentially  diminishes  the  interest  of 
some  of  his  best  plays,  the  Misanthrope  and  the 
Femmes  Savant  es,  for  example,  which  for  this  reason 
seem  better  fitted  for  the  closet  than  the  stage,  and 
have  long  since  ceased  to  be  favourites  with  the 
public.  This  want  of  interest  is,  moreover,  aggra¬ 
vated  by  the  barrenness  of  action  visible  in  many  of 
Moliere’s  comedies,  where  he  seems  only  to  have 
sought  an  apology  for  bringing  together  his  coteries 
of  gentlemen  and  ladies  for  the  purpose  of  exhibit- 


408  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ing  their  gladiatorial  dexterity  in  conversation.  Not 
so  with  the  English  dramatist,  whose  boundless  in¬ 
vention  crowds  his  scene  with  incidents  that  hurry 
us  along  with  breathless  interest,  but  which  sadly 
scandalize  the  lover  of  the  unities. 

In  conformity  with  his  general  plan,  too,  Shaks- 
peare  brings  before  us  every  variety  of  situation — 
the  court,  the  camp,  and  the  cloister ;  the  busy  hum 
of  populous  cities,  or  the  wild  solitude  of  the  forest 
— presenting  us  with  pictures  of  rich  and  romantic 
beauty,  which  could  not  fall  within  the  scope  of  his 
rival,  and  allowing  himself  to  indulge  in  the  unbound¬ 
ed  revelry  of  an  imagination  which  Moliere  did  not 
possess.  The  latter,  on  the  other  hand,  an  attentive 
observer  of  man  as  he  is  found  in  an  over-refined 
state  of  society,  in  courts  and  crowded  capitals,  cop¬ 
ied  his  minutest  lineaments  with  a  precision  that 
gives  to  his  most  general  sketches  the  air  almost  of 
personal  portraits;  seasoning,  moreover,  his  discours¬ 
es  with  shrewd  hints  and  maxims  of  worldly  policy. 
Shakspeare’s  genius  led  him  rather  to  deal  in  bold 
touches  than  in  this  nice  delineation.  He  describes 
classes  rather  than  individuals;  he  touches  the  springs 
of  the  most  intense  passions.  The  daring  of  ambi¬ 
tion,  the  craving  of  revenge,  the  deep  tenderness  of 
love,  are  all  materials  in  his  hands  for  comedy  ;  and 
this  gives  to  some  of  his  admired  pieces — his  “Mer¬ 
chant  of  Venice”  and  his  “Measure  for  Measure,” 
for  example  —  a  solemnity  of  colouring  that  leaves 
them  only  to  be  distinguished  from  tragedy  by  their 
more  fortunate  termination.  Moliere,  on  the  con- 


MOLIERE. 


409 


trary,  sedulously  excludes  from  his  plays  whatever 
can  impair  their  comic  interest.  And  when,  as  he 
has  done  very  rarely,  he  aims  directly  at  vice  instead 
of  folly  (in  the  Tartuffe ,  for  instance),  he  studies  to 
exhibit  it  under  such  ludicrous  points  of  view  as 
shall  excite  the  derision  rather  than  the  indignation 
of  his  audience. 

But  whatever  be  the  comparative  merits  of  these 
great  masters,  each  must  be  allowed  to  have  attained 
complete  success  in  his  way.  Comedy,  in  the  hands 
of  Shakspeare,  exhibits  to  us  man,  not  only  as  he  is 
moved  by  the  petty  vanities  of  life,  but  by  deep  and 
tumultuous  passion  ;  in  situations  which  it  requires  all 
the  invention  of  the  poet  to  devise  and  the  richest 
colouring  of  eloquence  to  depict.  But  if  the  object 
of  comedy,  as  has  been  said,  be  “  to  correct  the  fol¬ 
lies  of  the  age,  by  exposing  them  to  ridicule,”  who 
then  has  equalled  Moliere  \ 

F  F  F 


410  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY.* 

OCTOBER,  182  4. 

The  characteristics  of  an  Italian  school  are  no¬ 
where  so  discernible  in  English  literary  history  as 
under  the  reign  of  Elizabeth.  At  the  period  when 
England  was  most  strenuous  in  breaking  off  her  spir¬ 
itual  relations  with  Italy,  she  cultivated  most  closely 
her  intellectual.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  name  ei¬ 
ther  the  contemporary  dramatists,  or  Surrey,  Sidney, 
and  Spenser,  the  former  of  whom  derived  the  plots 
of  many  of  their  most  popular  plays,  as  the  latter  did 
the  forms,  and  frequently  the  spirit  of  their  poetical 
compositions,  from  Italian  models.  The  translations 
of  the  same  period  were,  in  several  instances,  superior 
to  any  which  have  been  since  produced.  Harring¬ 
ton’s  version  of  the  “Orlando  Furioso,”  with  all  its 
inaccuracy,  is  far  superior  to  the  cumbrous  monoto¬ 
ny  of  Hoole.  Of  Fairfax,  the  elegant  translator  of 
Tasso,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  he  is  styled  by  Dry- 
den  “the  poetical  father  of  Waller,”  and  quoted  by 
him,  in  conjunction  with  Spenser,  as  “  one  of  the 
great  masters  in  our  language.”  The  popularity  of 
the  Italian  was  so  great  even  in  Ascham’s  day,  who 
did  not  survive  the  first  half  of  Elizabeth’s  reign,  as 
to  draw  from  the  learned  schoolmaster  much  peevish 

*  1.  “The  Orlando  Innamorato  ;  translated  into  prose  and  verse,  from 
the  Italian  of  Francesco  Berni.  By  W.  S.  Rose.”  8vo,  p.  279.  Lon¬ 
don,  1823. 

2.  “  The  Orlando  Furioso ;  translated  into  verse  from  the  Italian  of 
Ludovico  Ariosto.  By  W.  S.  Rose.”  Vol.  i.,  8vo.  London,  1823. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


411 


animadversion  upon  what  he  terms  “  the  enchant¬ 
ments  of  Circe,  fond  books  of  late  translated  out  of 
Italian  into  English,  and  sold  in  every  shop  in  Lon¬ 
don/’  It  gradually  lost  this  wide  authority  during 
the  succeeding  century.  This  w  as  but  natural.  Be¬ 
fore  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  all  the  light  of  learning 
wdiich  fell  upon  the  world  had  come  from  Italy,  and 
our  own  literature,  like  a  young  and  tender  plant,  in¬ 
sensibly  put  forth  its  branches  most  luxuriantly  in  the 
direction  whence  it  felt  this  invigorating  influence. 
As  it  grew  in  years  and  hardihood,  it  sent  its  fibres 
deeper  into  its  own  soil,  and  drew  thence  the  nourish¬ 
ment  which  enabled  it  to  assume  its  fair  and  full 
proportions.  Milton,  it  is  true,  the  brightest  name  on 
the  poetical  records  of  that  period,  cultivated  it  with 
eminent  success.  Any  one  acquainted  with  the  wri¬ 
tings  of  Dante,  Pulci,  and  Tasso,  will  understand  the 
value  and  the  extent  of  Milton’s  obligations  to  the  Ital¬ 
ian.  He  was  far  from  desiring  to  conceal  them,  and 
he  has  paid  many  a  tribute  “of  melodious  verse”  to  the 
sources  from  which  he  drew  so  much  of  the  nourish¬ 
ment  of  his  exalted  genius.  “To  imitate,  as  he  has 
done,”  in  the  language  of  Boileau,  “  is  not  to  act  the 
part  of  a  plagiary,  but  of  a  rival.”  Milton  is,  more¬ 
over,  one  of  the  few  writers  who  have  succeeded  so 
far  in  comprehending  the  niceties  of  foreign  tongue 
as  to  be  able  to  add  something  to  its  poetical  wealth, 
and  his  Italian  sonnets  are  written  with  such  purity 
as  to  have  obtained  commendations  from  the  Tuscan 
critics.* 


*  Milton,  in  his  treatise  on  The  Reason  of  Church  Government,  alludes 


412  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

Boileau,  who  set  the  current,  of  French  taste  at 
this  period,  had  a  considerable  contempt  for  that  of 
his  neighbours.  He  pointed  one  of  his  antithetical 
couplets  at  the  “  tinsel  of  Tasso”  (“  clinquant  du 
Tasse ”*),  and  in  another  he  ridiculed  the  idea  of 
epics,  in  which  “the  devil  was  always  blustering 
against  the  heavens.”f  The  English  admitted  the 
sarcasm  of  Boileau  with  the  cold  commentary  of 
Addison  ;f  and  the  “clinquant  du  Tasse”  became  a 
cant  term  of  reproach  upon  the  whole  body  of  Ital¬ 
ian  letters.  The  French  went  still  farther,  and  af¬ 
terward,  applying  the  sarcasm  of  their  critic  to  Milton 
as  well  as  to  Tasso,  rejected  both  the  poets  upon  the 
same  principles.  The  French  did  the  English  as 
much  justice  as  they  did  the  Italians.  No  great 
change  of  opinion  in  this  matter  took  place  in  Eng¬ 
land  during  the  last  century.  The  Wartons  and 
Gray  had  a  just  estimation  of  this  beautiful  tongue, 
but  Dr.  Johnson,  the  dominant  critic  of  that  day, 
seems  to  have  understood  the  language  but  imper¬ 
fectly,  and  not  to  have  much  relished  in  it  what  he 
understood. 

In  the  present  age  of  intellectual  activity,  attention 
is  so  generally  bestowed  on  all  modern  languages 
which  are  ennobled  by  a  literature,  that  it  is  not  sin¬ 
gular  an  acquaintance  with  the  Italian  in  particular 

modestly  enough  to  his  Italian  pieces,  and  the  commendations  bestowed 
upon  them.  “  Other  things,  which  I  had  shifted  in  scarcity  of  books  and 
conveniencies  to  hatch  up  among  them,  were  received  with  written  en¬ 
comiums,  which  the  Italian  is  not  forward  to  bestow  on  men  of  this  side 
the  Alps.”  *  Satire  IX. 

f  L’Art  Poetique,  c.  III.  }  Spectator,  No.  VI. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY 


413 


should  be  widely  diffused.  Great  praise,  however,  is 
due  to  the  labours  of  Mr.  Roscoe.  There  can  be 
little  doubt  that  his  elaborate  biographies  of  the  Me¬ 
dici,  which  contain  as  much  literary  criticism  as  his¬ 
torical  narrative,  have  mainly  contributed  to  the 
promotion  of  these  studies  among  his  countrymen. 
These  works  have  of  late  met  with  much  flippant 
criticism  in  some  of  their  leading  journals.  In  Italy 
they  have  been  translated,  are  now  cited  as  authori¬ 
ties,  and  have  received  the  most  encomiastic  notices 
from  several  eminent  scholars.  These  facts  afford 
conclusive  testimony  of  their  merits.  The  name  of 
Mathias  is  well  known  to  every  lover  of  the  Italian 
tongue  ;  his  poetical  productions  rank  with  those  of 
Milton  in  merit,  and  far  exceed  them  in  quantity. 
To  conclude,  it  is  not  many  years  since  Cary  gave 
to  his  countrymen  his  very  extraordinary  version  of 
the  father  of  Tuscan  poetry,  and  Rose  is  now  swell¬ 
ing  the  catalogue  with  translations  of  the  two  most 
distinguished  chivalrous  epics  of  Italy. 

Epic  romance  has  continued  to  be  a  great  favour¬ 
ite  in  that  country  ever  since  its  first  introduction 
into  the  polished  circles  of  Florence  and  Ferrara,  to¬ 
wards  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century.  It  has  held 
much  the  same  rank  in  its  ornamental  literature 
which  the  drama  once  enjoyed  in  the  English,  and 
which  historical  novel-writing  maintains  now.  It 
hardly  seems  credible  that  an  enlightened  people 
should  long  continue  to  take  great  satisfaction  in  po¬ 
ems  founded  on  the  same  extravagant  fictions,  and 
spun  out  to  the  appalling  length  of  twenty,  thirty, 


414  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

nay,  forty  cantos  of  a  thousand  verses  each.  But 
the  Italians,  like  most  Southern  nations,  delight  ex¬ 
ceedingly  in  the  uncontrolled  play  of  the  imagina¬ 
tion,  and  tliev  abandon  themselves  to  all  its  brilliant 
illusions,  with  no  other  object  in  view  than  mere  rec¬ 
reation.  An  Englishman  looks  for  a  moral,  or,  at 
least,  for  some  sort  of  instruction,  from  the  wildest 
work  of  fiction.  But  an  Italian  goes  to  it  as  he 
would  go  to  the  opera — to  get  impressions  rather 
than  ideas.  He  is  extremely  sensible  to  the  fine 
tones  of  his  native  language,  and,  under  the  combi¬ 
ned  influence  produced  by  the  colouring  of  a  lavish 
fancy  and  the  music  of  a  voluptuous  versification,  lie 
seldom  stoops  to  a  cold  analysis  of  its  purpose  or  its 
probability. 

Romantic  fiction,  however,  which  flourished  so 
exuberantly  under  a  warm  Southern  sky,  was  trans¬ 
planted  from  the  colder  regions  of  Normandy  and 
England.  It  is  remarkable  that  both  these  countries, 
in  which  it  had  its  origin,  should  have  ceased  to  cul¬ 
tivate  it  at  the  very  period  w  hen  the  perfection  of 
their  respective  languages  would  have  enabled  them 
to  do  so  with  entire  success.  We  believe  this  re¬ 
mark  requires  no  qualification  in  regard  to  France. 
Spenser  affords  one  illustrious  exception  among  the 
English.* 

*  The  influence ,  however,  of  the  old  Norman  romances  may  be  dis¬ 
covered  in  the  productions  of  a  much  later  period.  Their  incredible 
length  required  them  to  be  broken  up  into  fyttcs ,  or  cantos,  by  th-e  min¬ 
strel,  who  recited  them  with  the  accompaniment  of  a  harp,  in  the  same 
manner  as  the  epics  of  Homer,  broken  into  rhapsodies ,  were  chanted  by 
the  bards  of  Ionia.  The  minstrel  who  could  thus  beguile  the  tedium  of 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


415 


It  was  not  until  long  after  the  extinction  of  this 
species  of  writing  in  the  North  that  it  reappeared  in 
Italy.  The  commercial  habits,  and  the  Republican 
institutions  of  the  Italians  in  the  twelfth  and  thir¬ 
teenth  centuries,  were  most  unfavourable  to  the 
spirit  of  chivalry,  and,  consequently,  to  the  fables 
which  grew  out  of  it.  The  three  patriarchs  of  their 
literature,  moreover,  by  the  light  which,  in  this  dark 
period,  they  threw  over  other  walks  of  imagination, 
turned  the  attention  of  their  countrymen  from  those 
of  romance.  Dante,  indeed,  who  resembled  Milton 
in  so  many  other  particulars,  showed  a  similar  pred¬ 
ilection  for  the  ancient  tales  of  chivalry.  His  Corn- 
media  contains  several  encomiastic  allusions  to  them, 
but,  like  the  English  bard,  he  contented  himself  with 
these,  and  chose  a  subject  better  suited  to  his  ambi¬ 
tious  genius  and  inflexible  temper.*  His  poem,  it  is 
true,  was  of  too  eccentric  a  character  to  be  widely 


a  winter’s  evening  was  a  welcome  guest  at  the  baronial  castle  and  in 
the  hall  of  the  monastery.  As  Greek  and  Roman  letters  were  revived, 
the  legends  of  chivalry  fell  into  disrepute,  and  the  minstrel  gradually  re¬ 
treated  to  the  cottage  of  the  peasant,  who  was  still  rude  enough  to  relish 
his  simple  melody.  But  the  long  romance  was  beyond  the  comprehen¬ 
sion  or  the  taste  of  the  rustic.  It  therefore  gave  way  to  less  complica¬ 
ted  narratives,  and  from  its  wreck  may  be  fairly  said  to  have  arisen  those 
Border  songs  and  ballads  which  form  the  most  beautiful  collection  of 
rural  minstrelsy  that  belongs  to  any  age  or  country. 

*  Milton’s  poetry  abounds  in  references  to  the  subjects  of  romantic 
fable  ;  and  in  his  “  Epitaphium  Damonis ,”  he  plainly  intimates  his  inten¬ 
tion  of  writing  an  epic  on  the  story  of  Arthur.  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  he  would  have  succeeded  on  such  a  topic.  His  austere  char¬ 
acter  would  seem  to  have  been  better  fitted  to  feel  the  impulses  of  reli¬ 
gious  enthusiasm  than  those  of  chivalry  ;  and  England  has  no  reason  to 
regret  that  her  most  sublime  poet  was  reserved  for  the  age  of  Cromwell 
instead  of  the  romantic  reign  of  Elizabeth. 


416  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

imitated,*  and  both  Boccaccio  and  Petrarch,  with 
less  talent,  had  a  more  extensive  influence  over  the 
taste  of  their  nation.  The  garrulous  graces  of  the 
former  and  the  lyrical  finish  of  the  latter  are  still 
solicited  in  the  lighter  compositions  of  Italy.  Last¬ 
ly,  the  discoveries  of  ancient  manuscripts  at  home, 
and  the  introduction  of  others  from  Constantinople, 
when  that  rich  depository  of  Grecian  science  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  barbarian,  gave  a  new  direc¬ 
tion  to  the  intellectual  enterprise  of  Italian  scholars, 
and  withdrew  them  almost  wholly  from  the  farther 
cultivation  of  their  infant  literature. 

Owing  to  these  circumstances,  the  introduction  of 
the  chivalrous  epoque  was  protracted  to  the  close 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  when  its  first  successful 
specimens  were  produced  at  the  accomplished  court 
of  the  Medici.  The  encouragement  extended  by 
this  illustrious  family  to  every  branch  of  intellectual 
culture  has  been  too  often  the  subject  of  encomium 
to  require  from  us  any  particular  animadversion. 
Lorenzo,  especially,  by  uniting  in  his  own  person 
the  scholarship  and  talent  which  he  so  liberally  re¬ 
warded  in  others,  contributed  more  than  all  to  the 
effectual  promotion  of  an  enlightened  taste  among 
his  countrymen.  Even  his  amusements  were  sub- 

*  The  best  imitation  of  the  “  Divina  Commcdia ”  is  probably  the  “  Can - 
tiba  in  morte  di  Ugo  Basville ,”  by  the  most  eminent  of  the  living  Italian 
poets,  Monti.  His  talent  for  vigorous  delineation  by  a  single  coup  de 
jtinceau  is  eminently  Dantcsque,  and  the  plan  of  his  poem  is  the  exact 
counterpart  of  that  of  the  “  Inferno Instead  of  a  mortal  descending 
into  the  regions  of  the  damned,  one  of  their  number  (the  spirit  of  Bas¬ 
ville,  a  Frenchman)  is  summoned  back  to  the  earth,  to  behold  the  crimes 
and  miseries  of  his  native  country  during  the  period  of  the  Revolution. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


417 


servient  to  it,  and  the  national  literature  may  be 
fairly  said,  at  this  day,  to  retain  somewhat  of  the 
character  communicated  to  it  by  his  elegant  recrea¬ 
tions.  Ilis  delicious  villas  at  Fiesole  and  Cajano 
are  celebrated  by  the  scholars,  who,  in  the  silence 
of  their  shades,  pursued  with  him  the  studies  of  his 
favourite  philosophy  and  of  poetry.  Even  the  sen¬ 
sual  pleasures  of  the  banquet  were  relieved  by  the 
inventions  of  wit  and  fancy.  Lyrical  composition, 
which,  notwithstanding  its  peculiar  adaptation  to  the 
flexible  movements  of  the  Italian  tongue,  had  fallen 
into  neglect,  was  revived,  and,  together  wfith  the  first 
eloquent  productions  of  the  romantic  muse,  was  re¬ 
cited  at  the  table  of  Lorenzo. 

Of  the  guests  who  frequented  it,  Pulci  and  Poli- 
tian  are  the  names  most  distinguished,  and  the  only 
ones  connected  with  our  present  subject.  The  lat¬ 
ter  of  these  was  received  into  the  family  of  Lorenzo 
as  the  preceptor  of  his  children,  an  office  for  which 
he  seems  to  have  been  better  qualified  by  his  extra¬ 
ordinary  attainments  than  by  his  disposition.  What¬ 
ever  may  have  been  the  asperity  of  his  temper,  how¬ 
ever,  his  poetical  compositions  breathe  the  perfect 
spirit  of  harmony.  The  most  remarkable  of  these, 
distinguished  as  the  “  Verses  of  Politian”  (Stanze  di 
Poliziano),  is  a  brief  fragment  of  an  epic,  whose 
purpose  was  to  celebrate  the  achievements  of  Julian 
de  Medici,  a  younger  brother  of  Lorenzo,  at  a  tour¬ 
nament  exhibited  at  Florence  in  1468.  This  would 
appear  but  a  meager  basis  for  the  structure  of  a 
great  poem.  Politian,  however,  probably  in  conse- 

G  G  G 


418  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

quence  of  the  untimely  death  of  Julian,  his  hero, 
abandoned  it  in  the  middle  of  the  second  canto, 
even  before  he  had  reached  the  event  which  was  to 
constitute  the  subject  of  his  story. 

The  incidents  of  the  poem  thus  abruptly  termi¬ 
nated  are  of  no  great  account.  We  have  a  por¬ 
trait  of  Julian,  a  hunting  expedition,  a  love  adven¬ 
ture,  a  digression  into  the  island  of  Venus,  which 
takes  up  about  half  the  canto,  and  a  vision  of  the 
hero,  which  ends  just  as  the  tournament,  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  the  piece,  is  about  to  begin,  and  with  it,  like 
the  “  fabric  of  a  vision,”  ends  the  poem  also.  In 
this  short  space,  however,  the  poet  has  concentrated 
all  the  beauties  of  his  art,  the  melody  of  a  musical 
ear,  and  the  inventions  of  a  plastic  fancy.  His  isl¬ 
and  of  love,  in  particular,  is  emblazoned  with  those 
gorgeous  splendours,  which  have  since  been  borrow¬ 
ed  for  the  enchanted  gardens  of  Alcina,  Armida,  and 
Acrasia. 

But  this  little  fragment  is  not  recommended,  at 
least  to  an  English  reader,  so  much  by  its  Oriental 
pomp  of  imagery  as  by  its  more  quiet  and  delicate 
pictures  of  external  nature.  Brilliancy  of  imagina¬ 
tion  is  the  birthright  of  the  Italian  poet,  as  much  as 
a  sober,  contemplative  vein  is  of  the  English.  This 
is  the  characteristic  of  almost  all  their  best  and 
most  popular  poetry  during  the  sixteenth  and  seven¬ 
teenth  centuries.  The  two  great  poets  of  the  four¬ 
teenth  approach  much  nearer  to  the  English  char¬ 
acter.  Dante  shows  not  only  deeper  reflection  than 
is  common  with  his  countrymen,  but  in  parts  of  his 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


419 


work,  in  the  Purgatorio  more  especially,  manifests 
a  sincere  relish  for  natural  beauty,  by  his  most  accu¬ 
rate  pictures  of  rural  objects  and  scenery.  Petrarch 
cherished  the  recollections  of  an  unfortunate  pas¬ 
sion,  until,  we  may  say,  without  any  mystical  per¬ 
version  of  language,  it  became  a  part  of  his  intellect¬ 
ual  existence.*  This  gave  a  tender  and  melancholy 
expression  to  his  poems,  more  particularly  to  those 
written  after  the  death  of  Laura,  quite  as  much 

*  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  speculations  of  the  Abbe  de  Sade, 
no  doubt  can  be  entertained  of  the  substantial  existence  of  Laura,  or  of 
Petrarch’s  passion  for  her.  Indeed,  independently  of  the  internal  evi¬ 
dence  afforded  by  his  poetry,  such  direct  notices  of  his  mistress  are  scat¬ 
tered  through  his  “  Letters”  and  serious  prose  compositions,  that  it  is 
singular  there  should  ever  have  existed  a  skepticism  on  these  points. 
Ugo  Foscolo,  the  well-known  author  of  “Jacobo  Ortis ,”  has  lately  pub¬ 
lished  an  octavo  volume,  entitled  “ Essays  on  Petrarch .”  Among  other 
particulars,  showing  the  unbounded  influence  that  Laura  de  Sade  obtained 
over  the  mind  of  her  poetical  lover,  he  quotes  the  following  memoran¬ 
dum,  made  by  Petrarch  two  months  after  her  decease,  in  his  private 
manuscript  copy  of  Virgil,  now  preserved  in  the  Ambrosian  library  at 
Milan : 

“  It  was  in  the  early  days  of  my  youth,  on  the  sixth  of  April,  in  the 
morning,  and  in  the  year  1327,  that  Laura,  distinguished  by  her  own  vir¬ 
tues,  and  celebrated  in  my  verses,  first  blessed  my  eyes  in  the  Church 
of  Santa  Clara,  at  Avignon  ;  and  it  was  in  the  same  city,  on  the  sixth 
of  the  very  same  month  of  April,  at  the  very  same  hour  in  the  morning, 
in  the  year  1348,  that  this  bright  luminary  was  withdrawn  from  our  sight, 
when  I  was  at  Verona,  alas  !  ignorant  of  my  calamity.  The  remains  of 
her  chaste  and  beautiful  body  were  deposited  in  the  Church  of  the  Cor¬ 
deliers  on  the  evening  of  the  same  day.  To  preserve  the  afflicting  re¬ 
membrance,  I  have  taken  a  bitter  pleasure  in  recording  it,  particularly  in 
this  book,  which  is  most  frequently  before  my  eyes,  in  order  that  nothing 
in  this  world  may  have  any  farther  attraction  for  me ;  that  this  great 
attachment  to  life  being  dissolved,  I  may,  by  frequent  reflection,  and  a 
proper  estimation  of  our  transitory  existence,  be  admonished  that  it  is 
high  time  for  me  to  think  of  quitting  this  earthly  Babylon,  which  I  trust  it 
will  not  be  difficult  for  me,  with  a  strong  and  manly  courage,  to  accom¬ 
plish.”—  P.  35. 


420  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

English  as  Italian.  Love  furnishes  the  great  theme 
and  impulse  to  the  Italian  poet.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  all  their  principal  versifiers  have  written 
under  the  inspiration  of  a  real  or  pretended  passion. 
It  is  to  them  what  a  less  showy  and  less  exclusive 
sensibility  is  to  an  Englishman.  The  latter  ac¬ 
knowledges  the  influence  of  many  other  affections 
and  relations  in  life.  The  death  of  a  friend  is  far 
more  likely  to  excite  his  muse  than  the  smiles  or 
frowns  of  his  mistress.  The  Italian  seldom  dwells 
on  melancholy  reminiscences,  but  writes  under  the 
impulse  of  a  living  and  ardent  passion.  Petrarch 
did  both ;  but  in  the  poetry  which  he  composed  after 
the  death  of  his  mistress,  exalted  as  it  is  by  devo¬ 
tional  sentiment,  he  deviated  from  the  customs  of 
his  nation,  and  adopted  an  English  tone  of  feeling. 
A  graver  spirit  of  reflection  and  a  deeper  sympathy 
for  the  unobtrusive  beauties  of  nature  are  observable 
in  some  of  their  later  writers  ;  but  these  are  not 
primitive  elements  in  the  Italian  character.  Gay, 
brilliant,  imaginative,  are  the  epithets  which  best 
indicate  the  character  of  their  literature  during  its 
most  flourishing  periods  ;  and  the  poetry  of  Italy 
seems  to  reflect  as  clearly  her  unclouded  skies  and 
glowing  landscape,  as  that  of  England  does  the  tran¬ 
quil  and  somewhat  melancholy  complexion  of  her 
climate. 

The  verses  of  Politian,  to  return  from  our  digres¬ 
sion,  contain  many  descriptions  distinguished  by  the 
calm,  moral  beauty  of  which  we  have  been  speak¬ 
ing.  Resemblances  may  be  traced  between  these 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


421 


passages  and  the  writings  of  some  of  our  best  Eng¬ 
lish  poets.  The  descriptive  poetry  of  Gray  and  of 
Goldsmith,  particularly,  exhibits  a  remarkable  coin¬ 
cidence  with  that  of  Politian  in  the  enumeration  of 
rural  images.  The  stanza  cxxi.,  setting  forth  the 
descent  of  Cupid  into  the  island  of  Venus,  may  be 
cited  as  having  suggested  a  much  admired  simile  in 
Gay’s  popular  ballad,  Black-eyed  Susan,  since  the 
English  verse  is  almost  a  metaphrase  of  the  Italian : 

“  Or  poi  che  ad  ail  tese  ivi  pervenne, 

Forte  le  scosse,  e  giu  calossi  a  piorrrbo, 

Tutto  serrato  nelle  saere  penne, 

Come  a  suo  nido  fa  lieto  Colombo.” 

“  So  the  sweet  lark,  high  poised  in  air, 

Shuts  close  his  pinions  to  his  breast, 

If  chance  his  mate’s  shrill  call  he  hear, 

And  drops  at  once  into  her  nest.” 

These  “  Stanze”  were  the  first  example  of  a  happy 
cultivation  of  Italian  verse  in  the  fifteenth  century. 
The  scholars  of  that  day  composed  altogether  in 
Latin.  Politian,  as  he  grew  older,  disdained  this 
abortive  production  of  his  youthful  muse,  and  relied 
for  his  character  with  posterity  on  his  Latin  poems 
and  his  elaborate  commentaries  upon  the  ancient 
classics.  Petrarch  looked  for  immortality  to  his  “Af¬ 
rica,”  as  did  Boccaccio  to  his  learned  Latin  disqui¬ 
sition  upon  ancient  mythology.*  Could  they  now, 
after  the  lapse  of  more  than  four  centuries,  revisit  the 

*  “  De  Genealogia  Deorum .” — The  Latin  writings  of  Boccaccio  and  Pe¬ 
trarch  may  be  considered  the  foundation  of  their  fame  with  their  contem¬ 
poraries.  The  coronation  of  the  latter  in  the  Roman  capitol  was  a 
homage  paid  rather  to  his  achievements  in  an  ancient  tongue  than  to  any 
in  his  own.  He  does  not  even  notice  his  Italian  lyrics  in  his  11  Letters  to 
Posterity .” 


422  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

world,  how  would  they  be  astonished,  perhaps  mor¬ 
tified,  the  former  to  find  that  he  was  remembered 
only  as  the  sonnetteer,  and  the  latter  as  the  novelist? 
The  Latin  prose  of  Politian  may  be  consulted  by  an 
antiquary ;  his  Latin  poetry  must  be  admired  by 
scholars  of  taste  ;  but  his  few  Italian  verses  constitute 
the  basis  of  his  high  reputation  at  this  day  with  the 
great  body  of  his  countrymen.  He  wrote  several 
lyrical  pieces  and  a  short  pastoral  drama  (Orfco),the 
first  of  a  species  which  afterward  grew  into  such  re¬ 
pute  under  the  hands  of  Tasso  and  Guarini.  All  of 
these  bear  the  same  print  of  his  genius.  One  can¬ 
not  but  regret  that  so  rare  a  mind  should,  in  con¬ 
formity  with  the  perverse  taste  of  his  age,  have  aban¬ 
doned  the  freshness  of  a  living  tongue  for  the  un¬ 
grateful  culture  of  a  dead  one.  His  “  Stanze,”  the 
mere  prologue  of  an  epic,  still  survive  amid  the  com¬ 
plete  and  elaborate  productions  of  succeeding  poets ; 
they  may  be  compared  to  the  graceful  portico  of  some 
unfinished  temple,  which  time  and  taste  have  respect¬ 
ed,  and  which  remains  as  in  the  days  of  its  architect, 
a  beautiful  ruin. 

Luigi  Pulci,  the  other  eminent  poet  whom  we 
mentioned  as  a  frequent  guest  at  the  table  of  Loren¬ 
zo  de’  Medici,  was  of  a  noble  family,  and  the  young¬ 
est  of  three  brothers,  all  of  them  even  more  distin¬ 
guished  by  their  accomplishments  than  by  birth. 
There  seems  to  be  nothing  worthy  of  particular  rec¬ 
ord  in  his  private  history.  He  is  said  to  have  pos¬ 
sessed  a  frank  and  merry  disposition,  and,  to  judge 
from  his  great  poem,  as  well  as  from  some  lighter 


I 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY.  423 

pieces  of  burlesque  satire,  which  he  bandied  with 
one  of  his  friends,  whom  he  was  in  the  habit  of  meet¬ 
ing  at  the  house  of  Lorenzo,  he  was  not  particularly 
fastidious  in  his  humour.  His  Morgante  Maggiore 
is  reported  to  have  been  written  at  the  request  of  Lo¬ 
renzo's  mother,  and  recited  at  his  table.  It  is  a  gen¬ 
uine  epic  of  chivalry,  containing  twenty-eight  cantos, 
founded  on  the  traditionary  defeat,  the  “  dolorosa 
rotta”  of  Charlemagne  and  his  peers  in  the  Valley 
of  Roncesvalles.  It  adheres  much  more  closely  than 
any  of  the  other  Italian  romances  to  the  lying  chron¬ 
icle  of  Turpin. 

It  may  appear  singular  that  the  intention  of  the 
author  should  not  become  apparent  in  the  course  of 
eight-and-twenty  cantos ;  but  it  is  a  fact,  that  schol¬ 
ars  both  at  home  and  abroad  have  long  disputed 
whether  the  poem  is  serious  or  satirical.  Crescim- 
beni  styles  the  author  “  modesto  e  moderato,”  while 
Tiraboschi  expressly  charges  him  with  the  deliber¬ 
ate  design  of  ridiculing  Scripture,  and  Voltaire,  in 
his  preface,  cites  the  Morgante  as  an  apology  for  his 
profligate  “  Pucelle.”  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
story  abounds  in  such  ridiculous  eccentricities  as 
give  it  the  air  of  a  parody  upon  the  marvels  of  ro¬ 
mance.  The  hero,  Morgante,  is  a  converted  infidel, 
“  un  gigante  smisurato,”  whose  formidable  weapon 
is  a  bell-clapper,  and  who,  after  running  through 
some  twenty  cantos  of  gigantic  valour  and  mounte¬ 
bank  extravagance,  is  brought  to  an  untimely  end  by 
a  wound  in  the  heel,  not  from  a  Trojan  arrow,  but 
from  the  bite  of  a  crab  !  We  doubt,  however, 


424  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

whether  Pulci  intended  his  satirical  shafts  for  the 
Christian  faith.  Liberal  allowance  is  to  be  conce¬ 
ded  for  the  fashion  of  his  age.  Nothing  is  more 
frequent  in  the  productions  of  that  period  than  such 
irreverent  freedoms  with  the  most  sacred  topics  as 
would  be  quite  shocking  in  ours.  Such  freedoms, 
however,  cannot  reasonably  be  imputed  to  profanity, 
or  even  levity,  since  numerous  instances  of  them 
occur  in  works  of  professed  moral  tendency,  as  in 
the  mysteries  and  moralities,  for  example,  those  sol¬ 
emn  deformities  of  the  ancient  French  and  English 
drama.  The  chronicle  of  Turpin,  the  basis  of  Pul- 
ci’s  epic,  which,  though  a  fraud,  was  a  pious  one, 
invented  by  some  priest  to  celebrate  the  triumphs  of 
the  Christian  arms,  is  tainted  with  the  same  inde¬ 
cent  familiarities.* 

Tempora  mutantur.  In  a  scandalous  pasquinade 
published  by  Lord  Byron  in  the  first  number  of  his 
Liberal,  there  is  a  verse  describing  St.  Peter  offici¬ 
ating  as  the  doorkeeper  of  heaven.  Pulci  has  a 
similar  one  in  the  Morgante  (canto  xxvi.,  st.  91), 
which,  no  doubt,  furnished  the  hint  to  his  lordship, 
who  has  often  improved  upon  the  Italian  poets. 
Both  authors  describe  St.  Peter’s  dress  and  vocation 

*  This  spurious  document  of  the  twelfth  century  contains,  in  a  copy 
which  we  have  now  before  us,  less  than  sixty  pages.  It  has  neither  the 
truth  of  history  nor  the  beauty  of  fiction.  It  abounds  in  commonplace 
prodigies,  and  sets  forth  Charlemagne’s  wars  and  his  defeat  in  the  valley 
of  Roncesvalles,  an  event  which  probably  never  happened.  Insignifi¬ 
cant  as  it  is  in  every  other  respect,  however,  it  is  the  seed  from  which 
has  sprung  up  those  romantic  fictions  which  adorned  the  rude  age  of 
the  Normans,  and  which  flourished  in  such  wide  luxuriance  under  Italian 
culture. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


425 


with  the  most  whimsical  minuteness.  In  the  ltal 
ian,  the  passage,  introduced  into  the  midst  of  a  sol¬ 
emn,  elaborate  description,  has  all  the  appearance 
of  being  told  in  very  good  faith.  No  one  will  ven¬ 
ture  to  put  so  charitable  a  construction  upon  his 
lordship’s  motives. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  intention  of  Pulci 
in  the  preceding  portion  of  the  work,  its  concluding 
cantos  are  animated  by  the  genuine  spirit  of  Chris¬ 
tian  heroism.  The  rear  of  Charlemagne’s  army  is 
drawn  into  an  ambuscade  by  the  treachery  of  his 
confidant  Ganelon.  Roncesvalles,  a  valley  in  the 
heart  of  the  Pyrenees,  is  the  theatre  of  action,  and 
Orlando,  with  the  flower  of  French  chivalry,  perish¬ 
es  there,  overpowered  by  the  Saracens.  The  battle 
is  told  in  a  sublime  epic  tone  worthy  of  the  occasion. 
The  cantos  xxvi.,  xxvn.,  containing  it,  are  filled 
with  a  continued  strain  of  high  religious  enthusiasm, 
with  the  varying,  animating  bustle  of  a  mortal  con¬ 
flict,  with  the  most  solemn  and  natural  sentiment 
suggested  by  the  horror  of  the  situation.  Orlando’s 
character  rises  into  that  of  the  divine  warrior.  His 
speech  at  the  opening  of  the  action,  his  lament  over 
his  unfortunate  army,  his  melancholy  reflections  on 
the  battle-field  the  night  after  the  engagement,  are 
conceived  with  such  sublimity  and  pathos  as  attest 
both  the  poetical  talent  of  Pulci  and  the  grandeur 
and  capacity  of  his  subject.  Yet  the  Morgante,  the 
greater  part  of  which  is  so  ludicrous,  is  the  only  em¬ 
inent  Italian  epic  which  has  seriously  described  the 
celebrated  rout  at  Roncesvalles. 

H  H  H 


426  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


Pulci’s  poem  is  not  much  read  by  the  Italians. 
Its  style,  in  general,  is  too  unpolished  for  the  fastid¬ 
ious  delicacy  of  a  modern  ear,  but  as  it  abounds  in 
the  oldfashioned  proverbialisms  ( riboboli )  of  Flor¬ 
ence,  it  is  greatly  prized  by  the  Tuscan  purists. 
These  familiar  sayings,  the  elegant  slang  of  the 
Florentine  mob,  have  a  value  among  the  Italian 
scholars,  at  least  among  a  large  faction  of  them, 
much  like  that  of  old  coins  with  a  virtuoso :  the 
more  rare  and  rusty,  the  better.  They  give  a  high 
relish  to  many  of  their  ancient  writers,  who,  with¬ 
out  other  merit  than  their  antiquity,  are  cited  as  au¬ 
thorities  in  their  vocabulary.*  These  riboboli  are 
to  be  met  with  most  abundantly  in  their  old  novelle , 
those,  especially,  which  are  made  up  of  familiar  dia¬ 
logue  between  the  lower  classes  of  citizens.  Boc¬ 
caccio  has  very  many  such  ;  Sacchetti  has  more 
than  all  his  prolific  tribe,  and  it  is  impossible  for  a 
foreigner  to  discern  or  to  appreciate  the  merits  of 
such  a  writer.  The  lower  classes  in  Florence  retain 
to  this  day  much  of  their  antique  picturesque  phrase¬ 
ology,!  and  Alfieri  tells  us  that  “  it  was  his  great 
delight  to  stand  in  some  unnoticed  corner,  and  listen 
to  the  conversation  of  the  mob  in  the  market-place.” 

*  This  has  been  loudly  censured  by  many  of  their  scholars  opposed  to 
the  literary  supremacy  of  the  Della-Cruscan  Academy.  See,  in  particu¬ 
lar,  the  acute  treatise  of  Cesarotti,  “  Saggio  sulla  Filosojia  delle  Lingue ,” 
Parte  IV. 

t  “  The  pure  language  of  Boccaccio,  and  of  other  ancient  writers,  is 
preserved  at  this  day  much  more  among  the  lower  classes  of  Florentine 
mechanics  and  of  the  neighbouring  peasants  than  among  the  more  pol¬ 
ished  Tuscan  society,  whose  original  dialect  has  suffered  great  mutations 
in  their  intercourse  with  foreigners.” — Pignotti,  “  Storia  della  Toscana ,” 
tom.  ii.,  p.  167. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


427 


With  the  exception  of  Orlando,  Pnlci  has  shown 
no  great  skill  in  delineation  of  character.  Charle¬ 
magne  and  Ganelon  are  the  prominent,  personages. 
The  latter  is  a  parody  on  traitors;  he  is  a  traitor  to 
common  sense.  Charlemagne  is  a  superannuated 
dupe,  with  just  credulity  sufficient  to  dovetail  into 
all  the  cunning  contrivances  of  Gan.  The  women 
have  neither  refinement  nor  virtue.  The  knights 
have  none  of  the  softer  graces  of  chivalry;  they  bul¬ 
ly  and  swagger  like  the  rude  heroes  of  Homer,  and 
are  exclusively  occupied  with  the  merciless  extermi¬ 
nation  of  infidels.  We  meet  with  none  of  the  im¬ 
agery,  the  rich  sylvan  scenery,  so  lavishly  diffused 

through  the  epics  of  Ariosto  and  Boiardo.  The 
* 

machinery  bears  none  of  the  airy  touches  of  an  Ara¬ 
bian  pencil,  but  is  made  out  of  the  cold  excrescences 
of  Northern  superstition,  dwarfs,  giants,  and  necro¬ 
mancers.  Before  quitting  Pulci,  we  must  point  out 
a  passage  (canto  xxv.,  st.  229,  230),  in  which  a 
devil  announces  to  Rinaldo  the  existence  of  another 
continent  beyond  the  ocean,  inhabited  by  mortals 
like  himself.  The  theory  of  gravitation  is  also 
plainly  intimated.  As  the  poem  was  written  before 
the  voyages  of  Columbus,  and  before  the  physical 
discoveries  of  Galileo  and  Copernicus,  the  predic¬ 
tions  are  extremely  curious  A  The  fiend,  alluding 

*  Dante,  two  centuries  before,  had  also  expressed  the  same  belief  in 
an  undiscovered  quarter  of  the  globe  : 

“  De’  vostri  sensi,  ch’e  del  rimanente. 

Non  vogliate  negar  l’esperienza, 

Diretro  al  sol,  del  mondo  senza  gente .” 

Inferno,  can.  xxvi.,  v.  115. 


428  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

to  the  vulgar  superstitions  entertained  of  the  Pillars 
of  Hercules,  thus  addresses  his  companion  : 

“  Know  that  this  theory  is  false  ;  his  bark 
The  daring  mariner  shall  urge  far  o’er 
The  Western  wave,  a  smooth  and  level  plain, 

Albeit  the  earth  is  fashion’d  like  a  wheel. 

Man  was  in  ancient  days  of  grosser  mould, 

And  Hercules  might  blush  to  learn  how  far 
Beyond  the  limits  he  had  vainly  set, 

The  dullest  seaboat  soon  shall  wing  her  way. 

Men  shall  descry  another  hemisphere, 

Since  to  one  common  centre  all  things  tend  ; 

So  earth,  by  curious  mystery  divine 

Well  balanced,  hangs  amid  the  starry  spheres. 

At  our  antipodes  are  cities,  states, 

And  thronged  empires,  ne’er  divined  of  yore. 

But  see,  the  sun  speeds  on  his  western  path 
To  glad  the  nations  with  expected  light. ” 

The  dialogues  of  Pulci’s  devils  respecting  free-will 
and  necessity,  their  former  glorious,  and  their  pres¬ 
ent  fallen  condition,  have  suggested  many  hints  for 
our  greater  Milton  to  improve  upon.  The  juggling 
frolics  of  these  fiends  at  the  royal  banquet  in  Sara¬ 
gossa  may  have  been  the  original  of  the  comical  mar¬ 
vels  played  off  through  the  intervention  of  similar 
agents  by  Dr.  Faust. 

Notwithstanding  the  good  faith  and  poetical  ele¬ 
vation  of  its  concluding  cantos,  the  Morgante,  ac¬ 
cording  to  our  apprehension,  is  anything  but  a  se¬ 
rious  romance.  Not  that  it  shows  a  disposition  to 
satire,  above  all,  to  the  religious  satire  often  imputed 
to  it;  but  there  is  a  light  banter,  a  vein  of  fun  run¬ 
ning  through  the  greater  portion  of  it,  which  is  quite 
the  opposite  of  the  lofty  spirit  of  chivalry.  Roman¬ 
tic  fiction,  among  our  Norman  ancestors,  grew  so 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


429 


directly  out  of  the  feudal  relations  and  adventurous 
spirit  of  the  age,  that  it  was  treated  with  all  the 
gravity  of  historical  record.  When  reproduced  in 
the  polite  and  artificial  societies  of  Italy,  the  same 
fictions  wore  an  air  of  ludicrous  extravagance  which 
would  no  longer  admit  of  their  being  repeated  seri¬ 
ously.  Recommended,  however,  by  a  proper  sea¬ 
soning  of  irony,  they  might  still  amuse  as  ingenious 
tales  of  wonder.  This  may  be  kept  in  view  in  fol¬ 
lowing  out  the  ramifications  of  Italian  narrative  po¬ 
etry  ;  for  they  will  all  be  found,  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  tinctured  with  the  same  spirit  of  ridicule.* 
The  circle  for  whom  Pulci  composed  his  epic  was 
peculiarly  distinguished  by  that  fondness  for  good- 
humoured  raillery,  which  may  be  considered  a  na¬ 
tional  trait  with  his  countrymen. 

It  seems  to  have  been  the  delight  of  Lorenzo  de’ 
Medici,  as  it  was  afterward,  in  a  more  remarkable 

*  A  distinction  may  be  pointed  out  between  the  Norman  and  tbe  Ital¬ 
ian  epics  of  chivalry.  The  former,  composed  in  the  rude  ages  of  feudal 
heroism,  are  entitled  to  much  credit  as  pictures  of  the  manners  of  that 
period  ;  while  the  latter,  written  in  an  age  of  refinement,  have  been  car¬ 
ried  by  their  poets  into  such  beautiful  extravagances  of  fiction  as  are 
perfectly  incompatible  with  a  state  of  society  at  any  period.  Let  any 
one  compare  the  feats  of  romantic  valour  recorded  by  Froissart,  the  tur¬ 
bulent,  predatory  habits  of  the  barons  and  ecclesiastics  under  the  early 
Norman  dynasty,  as  reported  by  Turner  in  his  late  “  History  of  England ,” 
with  these  old  romances,  and  he  will  find  enough  to  justify  our  remark. 
St.  Pelaye,  after  a  diligent  study  of  the  ancient  epics,  speaks  of  them  as 
exhibiting  a  picture  of  society  closely  resembling  that  set  forth  in  the 
chronicles  of  the  period.  Turner,  after  as  diligent  an  examination  of 
early  historical  documents,  pronounces  that  the  facts  contained  in  them 
perfectly  accord  with  the  general  portraiture  of  manners  depicted  in  the 
romances. — Mem.  de  V Acad,  des  Inscriptions ,  tom.  xx  ,  Art.  sur  V Ancient 
Chevalerie.  Turner's  “  History  of  England  from  the  Norman  Conquest 
&c.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vi. 


430  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


degree,  of  his  son  Leo  Tenth,  to  abandon  himself 
to  the  most  unreserved  social  freedoms  with  the 
friends  whom  he  collected  around  his  table.  The 
satirical  epigrams  which  passed  there  in  perfect 
good  humour  between  his  guests,  show,  at  least,  full 
as  much  merriment  as  manners.  Machiavelli  con¬ 
cludes  his  history  of  Florence  with  an  elaborate  por¬ 
trait  of  Lorenzo,  in  which  he  says  that  “  he  took 
greater  delight  in  frivolous  pleasures,  and  in  the  so¬ 
ciety  of  jesters  and  satirists,  than  became  so  great  a 
man.”  The  historian  might  have  been  less  austere 
in  his  commentary  upon  Lorenzo’s  taste,  since  he 
was  not  particularly  fastidious  in  the  selection  of  his 
own  amusements.* 

At  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century  Italy  was  di¬ 
vided  into  a  number  of  small  but  independent  states, 
whose  petty  sovereigns  vied  with  each  other,  not 
merely  in  the  poor  parade  of  royal  pageantry,  but  in 
the  liberal  endowment  of  scientific  institutions,  and 

*  A  letter  written  by  Machiavelli,  long  unknown,  and  printed  for  the 
first  time  at  Milan,  1810,  gives  a  curious  picture  of  his  daily  occupations 
when  living  in  retirement,  on  his  little  patrimony,  at  a  distance  from 
Florence.  Among  other  particulars,  he  mentions  that  it  was  his  custom 
after  dinner  to  repair  to  the  tavern,  where  he  passed  his  afternoon  at 
cards  with  the  company  whom  he  ordinarily  found  there,  consisting  of 
the  host,  a  miller,  a  butcher,  and  a  lime-maker.  Another  part  of  the 
epistle  exhibits  a  more  pleasing  view  of  the  pursuits  of  the  ex-secretary. 
“  In  the  evening  I  return  to  my  house  and  retire  to  my  study.  I  then 
take  off  the  rustic  garments  which  I  had  worn  during  the  day,  and,  hav¬ 
ing  dressed  myself  in  the  apparel  which  I  used  to  wear  at  court  and  in 
town,  I  mingle  in  the  society  of  the  great  men  of  antiquity.  I  draw  from 
them  the  nourishment  which  alone  is  suited  to  me,  and  during  the  four 
hours  passed  in  this  intercourse  I  forget  all  my  misfortunes,  and  fear 
neither  poverty  nor  death.  In  this  manner  I  have  composed  a  little 
work  upon  government.”  This  little  work  was  The  Prince. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


431 


the  patronage  of  learned  men.  Almost  every  Italian 
scholar  was  attached  to  some  one  or  other  of  these 
courtly  circles,  and  a  generous,  enlightened  emula¬ 
tion  sprung  up  among  the  states  of  Italy,  such  as 
had  never  before  existed  in  any  other  age  or  coun¬ 
try.  Among  the  Republics  of  ancient  Greece  the 
rivalship  was  political.  Their  literature ,  from  the 
time  of  Solon,  was  almost  exclusively  Athenian. 
An  interesting  picture  of  the  cultivated  manners  and 
intellectual  pleasures  of  these  little  courts  may  be 
gathered  from  the  Cortigiano  of  Castiglione,  which 
contains  in  the  introduction  a  particular  account  of 
the  pursuits  and  pastimes  at  the  court  of  his  sover¬ 
eign,  the  Duke  of  Urbino. 

None  of  these  Italian  states  make  so  shining  a 
figure  in  literary  history  as  the  insignificant  duchy 
of  Ferrara.  The  foul  crimes  which  defile  the  do¬ 
mestic  annals  of  the  family  of  Este  have  been  for¬ 
gotten  in  the  munificent  patronage  extended  by 
them  to  letters.  The  librarians  of  the  Biblioteca 
Estense,  Muratori  and  Tiraboschi,  have  celebrated 
the  virtues  of  their  native  princes  with  the  encomi¬ 
astic  pen  of  loyalty  ;  while  Ariosto  and  Tasso,  whose 
misfortunes  furnish  but  an  indifferent  commentary 
upon  these  eulogiuins,  offering  to  them  the  grateful 
incense  of  poetic  adulation,  have  extended  their 
names  still  wider  by  inscribing  them  upon  their  im¬ 
mortal  epics.  Their  patronage  had  the  good  for¬ 
tune,  not  always  attending  patronage,  of  developing 
genius.  Those  models  of  the  pastoral  drama,  the 
Aminta  of  Tasso,  and  the  Pastor  Fido  of  Guarini, 


432  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

whose  luxury  of  expression,  notwithstanding  the  dic¬ 
tum  of  Dr.  Johnson,*  it  has  been  found  as  difficult  to 
imitate  in  their  own  tongue  as  it  is  impossible  to 
translate  into  any  other;  the  comedies  and  Hora- 
tian  satires  of  Ariosto  ;  the  Secchia  Rapita  of  Tas- 
soni,  the  acknowledged  model  of  the  mock-heroic 
poems  of  Pope  and  Boileau  ;  and,  finally,  the  three 
great  epics  of  Italy,  the  Orlando  Innamorato ,  the 
Furioso ,  and  the  Gerusalemme  Liber  at  a,  were  all 
produced  in  the  brief  compass  of  a  century,  within 
the  limited  dominions  of  the  House  of  Este.  Dante 
had  reproached  Ferrara,  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
with  never  having  been  illustrated  by  the  name  of 
a  poet. 

Boiardo,  Count  of  Scandiano,  the  author  of  the 
Orlando  Innamorato,  the  first-born  of  these  epics, 
was  a  subject  of  Hercules  First,  Duke  of  Ferrara, 
and  by  him  appointed  governor  of  Reggio.  His 
military  conduct  in  that  office,  and  his  learned  trans¬ 
lations  from  the  ancient  classics,  show  him  to  have 
been  equally  accomplished  as  a  soldier  and  as  a 
scholar.  In  the  intervals  of  war,  to  which  his  active 
life  was  devoted,  he  amused  himself  with  the  com¬ 
position  of  his  long  poem.  He  had  spun  this  out 
into  the  sixty-seventh  canto  without  showing  any 
disposition  to  bring  it  to  a  conclusion,  when  his  lit¬ 
erary  labours  were  suddenly  interrupted,  as  he  in¬ 
forms  us  in  his  parting  stanza,  by  the  invasion  of 


*  “Dione  is  a  counterpart  to  Aminta  and  Pastor  Fido,  and  other  trifles 
of  the  same  kind,  easily  imitated  and  unworthy  of  imitation.” — Life  of 
Gay. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


433 


the  French  into  Italy  in  1794,  and  in  the  same  year 
the  author  died.  The  Orlando  Innamorato,  as  it 
advanced,  had  been  read  by  its  author  to  his  friends  ; 
but  no  portion  of  it  was  printed  till  after  his  death, 
and  its  extraordinary  merits  were  not  then  widely 
estimated,  in  consequence  of  its  antiquated  phrase¬ 
ology  and  Lombard  provincialisms.  A  Rifacimento 
some  time  after  appeared,  by  one  Domenichi,  who 
spoiled  many  of  the  beauties,  without  improving  the 
style  of  his  original.  Finally,  Berni,  in  little  more 
than  thirty  years  after  the  death  of  Boiardo,  new- 
moulded  the  whole  poem,*  with  so  much  dexterity 
as  to  retain  the  substance  of  every  verse  in  the  ori¬ 
ginal,  and  yet  to  clothe  them  in  the  seductive  graces 
of  his  own  classical  idiom.  Berni’ s  version  is  the 
only  one  now  read  in  Italy,  and  the  original  poem 
of  Boiardo  is  so  rare  in  that  country,  that,  it  was 
found  impossible  to  procure,  for  the  library  of  Har¬ 
vard  University,  any  copy  of  the  Innamorato  more 
ancient  than  the  reformed  one  by  Domenichi. 

The  history  of  letters  affords  no  stronger  exam¬ 
ple  of  the  power  of  style  than  the  different  fate  of 
these  two  productions  of  Berni  and  Boiardo.  We 
doubt  whether  the  experiment  would  have  been  at¬ 
tended  with  the  same  result  among  a  people  by 
whom  the  nicer  beauties  of  expression  are  less  cul- 


*  Sismondi  is  mistaken  in  saying  that  Berni  remodelled  the  Innamorato 
sixty  years  after  the  original.  He  survived  Boiardo  only  forty-two  years, 
and  he  had  half  completed  his  Rifacimento  at  least  ten  years  before  his 
own  death,  as  is  evident  from  his  beautiful  invocation  to  Verona  and  the 
Po  (canto  xxx.),  on  whose  banks  he  was  then  writing  it,  and  where  he 
was  living,  1526,  in  the  capacity  of  secretary  to  the  Bishop  of  Verona. 

1 1 1 


434  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

tivated,  as  with  the  English,  for  example.  If  we 
may  judge  from  the  few  specimens  which  we  have 
seen  extracted  from  the  Italian  original,  Chaucer 
exhibits  a  more  obsolete  and  exotic  phraseology 
than  Boiardo.  Yet  the  partial  attempt  of  Dry  den 
to  invest  the  father  of  English  poetry  with  a  mod¬ 
ernized  costume  has  had  little  success,  and  the  little 
epic  of  Palamon  and  Arcite  {The  Knight's  Tale ) 
is  much  more  highly  relished  in  the  rude  but  mus¬ 
cular  diction  of  Chaucer  than  in  the  polished  ver¬ 
sion  of  his  imitator. 

Whatever  may  be  the  estimation  of  the  style,  the 
glory  of  the  original  delineation  of  character  and  in¬ 
cident  is  to  be  given  exclusively  to  Boiardo.  He 
was  the  first  of  the  epic  poets  who  founded  a  ro¬ 
mance  upon  the  love  of  Orlando ;  and  a  large  por¬ 
tion  of  the  poem  is  taken  up  with  the  adventures  of 
this  hero  and  his  doughty  Paladius,  assembled  in  a 
remote  province  of  China  for  the  defence  of  his  mis¬ 
tress,  the  beautiful  Angelica : 

“  When  Agrican,  with  all  his  northern  powers, 

Besieged  Albracca,  as  romances  tell, 

The  city  of  Gallaphrone,  from  thence  to  win 
The  fairest  of  her  sex,  Angelica 
His  daughter,  sought  by  many  prowess  knights 
Both  Paynim,  and  the  peers  of  Charlemagne.” 

Paradise  Regained. 

With  the  exception  of  the  midnight  combat  between 
Agrican  and  Orlando,  in  which  the  conversion  of 
the  dying  Tartar  reminds  one  of  the  similar,  but 
more  affecting  death  of  Clorinda,  in  the  Jerusalem 
Delivered,  there  is  very  little  moral  interest  attach- 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


435 


ed  to  these  combats  of  Boiardo,  which  are  mere 
gladiatorial  exhibitions  of  hard  fighting,  and  sharp, 
jealous  wTangling.  The  fairy  gardens  of  Falerina 
and  Morgana,  upon  which  the  poet  enters  in  the 
second  book,  are  much  better  adapted  to  the  display 
of  his  wild  and  exuberant  imagination.  No  Italian 
writer,  not  even  Ariosto,  is  comparable  to  Boiardo 
for  exhibitions  of  fancy.  Enchantment  follows  en¬ 
chantment,  and  the  reader,  bewildered  with  the 
number  and  rapidity  of  the  transitions,  looks  in  vain 
for  some  clewT,  even  the  slender  thread  of  allegory 
which  is  held  out  by  the  poet,  to  guide  him  through 
the  unmeaning  marvellous  of  Arabian  fiction.  Ari¬ 
osto  has  tempered  his  imagination  with  more  discre¬ 
tion.  Both  of  these  great  romantic  poets  have 
wrought  upon  the  same  characters,  and  afford,  in 
this  respect,  a  means  of  accurate  comparison.  With¬ 
out  going  into  details,  wre  may  observe,  in  general, 
that  Boiardo  has  more  strength  than  grace ;  Ariosto, 
the  reverse.  Boiardo’s  portraits  are  painted,  or  may 
be  rather  said  to  be  sculptured,  with  a  clear,  coarse 
hand,  out  of  some  rude  material.  Ariosto’s  are 
sketched  with  the  volatile  graces,  nice  shades,  and 
variable  drapery  of  the  most  delicate  Italian  pencil. 
In  female  portraiture,  of  course,  Ariosto  is  far  supe¬ 
rior  to  his  predecessor.  The  glaring  coquetry  of 
Boiardo’s  xAngelica  is  refined  by  the  hand  of  his  rival 
into  something  like  the  coquetry  of  high  life,  and 
the  ferocious  tigress  beauties  of  the  original  Marfisa 
are  softened  into  those  of  a  more  polished  and  court¬ 
ly  amazon.  The  Innamorato  contains  no  examples 


436  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

of  the  pure,  deep  feeling,  which  gives  a  soul  to  the 
females  of  the  Furioso,  and  we  look  in  vain  for  the 
frolic  and  airy  scenes  which  enchant  us  so  frequent¬ 
ly  in  the  latter  poem.*  We  may  remark,  in  con¬ 
clusion,  that  the  rapid  and  unintermitting  succession 
of  incidents  in  the  Innamorato  prevents  the  poet 
from  indulging  in  those  collateral  beauties  of  senti¬ 
ment  and  imagery  which  are  prodigally  diffused  over 
the  romance  of  Ariosto,  and  which  give  to  it  an  ex¬ 
quisite  finish. 

Berni’s  Rifacimento  of  the  Orlando  Innamorato, 
as  we  have  already  observed,  first  made  it  popular 
with  the  Italians,  by  a  magical  varnish  of  versifica¬ 
tion,  which  gave  greater  lustre  to  the  beauties  of  his 
original,  and  glossed  over  its  defects.  It  has,  how¬ 
ever,  the  higher  merit  of  exhibiting  a  great  variety 
of  original  reflections,  sometimes  in  the  form  of  di¬ 
gressions,  but  more  frequently  as  introductions  to 
the  cantos.  These  are  enlivened  by  the  shrewd 
wit  and  elaborate  artlessness  of  expression,  that  form 
the  peculiar  attraction  of  Berni’s  poetry.  In  one  of 
the  prefatory  stanzas  to  the  fifty-first  canto,  the  read¬ 
er  may  recognise  a  curious  coincidence  with  a  well- 
known  passage  in  Shakspeare ;  the  more  so,  as  Ber- 
ni,  we  believe,  was  never  turned  into  English  before 
the  present  partial  attempt  of  Mr.  Rose  : 

“  Who  steals  a  bugle-horn,  a  ring,  a  steed, 

Or  such  like  worthless  thing,  has  some  discretion ; 

’Tis  petty  larceny  ;  not  such  his  deed 
Who  robs  us  of  our  fame,  our  best  possession. 

*  The  chase  of  the  Fairy  Morgana,  and  the  malicious  dance  of  the 
Loves  round  Rinaldo  (1.  ii.,  c.  viii.,  xv.),  may,  however,  be  considered 
good  exceptions  to  this  remark. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


437 


And  lie  who  takes  our  labour’s  worthiest  meed 
May  well  be  deem’d  a  felon  by  profession  ; 

Who  so  much  more  our  hate  and  scourge  deserves, 

As  from  the  rule  of  right  he  wider  swerves.” 

In  another  of  these  episodes  the  poet  has  introdu¬ 
ced  a  portrait  of  himself.  The  whole  passage  is  too 
long  for  insertion  here ;  but,  as  Mr.  Rose  has  also 
translated  it,  we  will  borrow  a  few  stanzas  from  his 
skilful  version  : 

“  His  mood  was  choleric,  and  his  tongue  was  vicious, 

But  he  was  praised  for  singleness  of  heart ; 

Not  taxed  as  avaricious  or  ambitious, 

Affectionate  and  frank,  and  void  of  art ; 

A  lover  of  his  friends,  and  unsuspicious  ; 

But  where  he  hated  knew  no  middle  part ; 

And  men  his  malice  by  his  love  might  rate  : 

But  then  he  was  more  prone  to  love  than  hate. 

“  To  paint  his  person,  this  was  thin  and  dry  : 

Well  sorting  it,  his  legs  were  spare  and  lean ; 

Broad  was  his  visage,  and  his  nose  was  high, 

While  narrow  was  the  space  that  was  between 
His  eyebrows  sharp  ;  and  blue  his  hollow  eye, 

Which  for  his  bushy  beard  had  not  been  seen 
But  that  the  master  kept  this  thicket  clear’d, 

At  mortal  war  with  mustache  and  with  beard. 

“  No  one  did  ever  servitude  detest 

Like  him,  though  servitude  was  still  his  dole ; 

Since  fortune  or  the  devil  did  their  best 
To  keep  him  evermore  beneath  control. 

While,  whatsoever  was  his  patron’s  hest, 

To  execute  it  went  against  his  soul ; 

His  service  would  he  freely  yield,  unask’d, 

But  lost  all  heart  and  hope  if  he  were  task’d. 

“  Nor  music,  hunting  match,  nor  mirthful  measure, 

Nor  play,  nor  other  pastime,  moved  him  aught ; 

And  if  ’twas  true  that  horses  gave  him  pleasure, 

The  simple  sight  of  them  was  all  he  sought, 

Too  poor  to  purchase  ;  and  his  only  treasure 
His  naked  bed  ;  his  pastime  to  do  naught 


438  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

But  tumble  there,  and  stretch  his  weary  length, 

And  so  recruit  his  spirits  and  his  strength.” 

Rose’s  Innamorato,  p.  48. 

The  passage  goes  on  to  represent  the  dreamy  and 
luxurious  pleasures  of  this  indolent  pastime,  with 
such  an  Epicurean  minuteness  of  detail  as  puts  the 
sincerity  of  the  poet  beyond  a  doubt.  His  smaller 
pieces,  Capitoli ,  as  they  are  termed,  contain  many 
incidental  allusions,  which  betray  the  same  lazy  pro¬ 
pensity. 

The  early  part  of  Berni’s  life  was  passed  in  Rome, 
where  he  obtained  a  situation  under  the  ecclesias¬ 
tical  government.  He  was  afterward  established  in 
a  canonry  at  Florence,  where  he  led  an  easy,  effem¬ 
inate  life,  much  caressed  for  his  social  talents  by  the 
Duke  Alessandro  de’  Medici.  His  end  was  more 
tragical  than  was  to  have  been  anticipated  from  so 
quiet  and  unambitious  a  temper.  He  is  said  to  have 
been  secretly  assassinated,  1536,  by  the  order  of  Al¬ 
exander,  for  refusing  to  administer  poison  to  the 
duke’s  enemy,  the  Cardinal  Hyppolito  de’  Medici. 
The  story  is  told  in  many  contradictory  ways  by 
different  Italian  writers,  some  of  whom  disbelieve  it 
altogether.  The  imputation,  however,  is  an  evi¬ 
dence  of  the  profligate  character  of  that  court,  and, 
if  true,  is  only  one  out  of  many  examples  of  perfid¬ 
ious  assassination,  which,  in  that  age,  dishonoured 
some  of  the  most  polished  societies  in  Italy. 

Berni  has  had  the  distinction  of  conferring  his 
name  on  a  peculiar  species  of  Italian  composi¬ 
tion.*  The  epithet  “ Bernesco ”  is  not  derived,  how- 

*  He  cannot  be  properly  considered  its  inventor ,  however.  He  lived 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


439 


ever,  as  has  been  incorrectly  stated  by  some  foreign 
scholars,*  from  his  reformed  version  of  the  “  Orlan¬ 
do,”  but  from  his  smaller  pieces,  his  Capitoli  more 
especially.  It  is  difficult  to  convey  a  correct  and 
adequate  notion  of  this  kind  of  satirical  trifling,  since 
its  chief  excellence  results  from  idiomatic  felicities 
of  expression,  that  refuse  to  be  transplanted  into  a 
foreign  tongue,  and  there  is  no  imitation  of  it,  that 
we  recollect,  in  our  own  language.  It  is  a  misap¬ 
plication  of  the  term  Bernesque  to  apply  it,  as  has 
been  sometimes  done,  to  the  ironical  style  supposed 
to  have  been  introduced  by  Lord  Byron  in  his  Bep- 
po  and  Don  Juan.  The  clear,  unequivocal  vein  of 
irony  which  plays  through  the  sportive  sallies  of  the 
Italian  has  no  resemblance  to  the  subdued  but  caus¬ 
tic  sneer  of  the  Englishman;  nor  does  it,  in  our 
opinion,  resemble  in  the  least  Peter  Pindar’s  bur¬ 
lesque  satire,  to  which  an  excellent  critic  in  Italian 
poetry  has  compared  it.f  Pindar  is  much  too  unre¬ 
fined  in  versification  and  in  diction  to  justify  the 
parallel.  Italian  poetry  always  preserves  the  purity 
of  its  expression,  however  coarse  or  indecent  may 
be  the  topic  on  which  it  is  employed.  The  subjects 
of  many  of  these  poems  are  of  the  most  whimsical 
and  trivial  nature.  We  find  some  in  Lode  della 
Peste,  del  Debito,  &c.  Several  in  commendation  of 

in  time  to  give  the  last  polish  to  a  species  of  familiar  poetry,  which  had 
been  long  undergoing  the  process  of  refinement  from  the  hands  of  his 
countrymen. 

*  Vide  Annotazioni  alia  Vita  di  Berni,  dal  conte  Mazzuchelli.  Clas. 
Ital.,  p.  xxxiv. 

t  Roscoe’s  “  Life  of  Loren,  de '  Medici vol.  i.,  p.  392,  Note. 


440  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

the  delicacies  of  the  table,  of  “  jellies, ”  “  eels,”  or  any 
other  dainty  which  pleased  his  epicurean  palate. 
These  Capitoli,  like  most  of  the  compositions  of  this 
polished  versifier,  furnish  a  perfect  example  of  the 
triumph  of  style.  The  sentiments,  sometimes  indel¬ 
icate,  and  often  puerile,  may  be  considered,  like  the 
worthless  insects  occasionally  found  in  amber,  in¬ 
debted  for  their  preservation  to  the  beautiful  sub¬ 
stance  in  which  they  are  imbedded. 

It  is  a  curious  fact,  that,  notwithstanding  the  ap¬ 
parent  facility  and  fluent  graces  of  Berni’s  style,  it 
was  wrought  with  infinite  care.  Some  of  his  verses 
have  been  corrected  twenty  and  thirty  times.  Many 
of  his  countrymen  have  imitated  it,  mistaking  its  fa¬ 
miliarity  of  manner  for  facility  of  execution. 

This  fastidious  revision  has  been  common  with 
the  most  eminent  Italian  poets.  Petrarca  devoted 
months  to  the  perfecting  of  one  of  his  exquisite  son¬ 
nets.*  Ariosto,  as  his  son  Virginius  records  of  him, 
“  was  never  satisfied  with  his  verses,  but  was  con¬ 
tinually  correcting  and  recorrecting  them almost 

*  The  following  is  a  literal  translation  of  a  succession  of  memoran¬ 
dums  in  Latin  at  the  head  of  one  of  his  sonnets :  “I  began  this  by  the 
impulse  of  the  Lord  ( Domino  jubente),  tenth  September,  at  the  dawn  of 
day,  after  my  morning  prayers.” 

“  I  must  make  these  two  verses  over  again,  singing  them,  and  I  must 
transpose  them.  Three  o’clock  A.M.,  19th  October.” 

“  I  like  this.  ( Hoc  placet)  30th  October.” 

“  No,  this  does  not  please  me.  20th  December,  in  the  evening.” 

“  February  18th,  towards  noon.  This  is  now  well ;  however,  look  at 
it  again.” 

It  was  generally  on  Friday  that  he  occupied  himself  with  the  painful 
labour  of  correction,  and  this  was  also  set  apart  by  him  as  a  day  of  fast 
and  penitence. — “  Essays ,”  cit.  sup. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


441 


every  stanza  in  the  last  edition  of  his  poem  publish¬ 
ed  in  his  lifetime  is  altered  from  the  original,  and 
one  verse  is  pointed  out  (canto  xviii.,  st.  142)  whose 
variations  filled  many  pages.  Tasso’s  manuscripts, 
preserved  in  the  library  at  Modena,  have  been  so 
often  retouched  by  him  that  they  are  hardly  intelli¬ 
gible  ;  and  Alfieri  was  in  the  habit,  not  only  of  cor¬ 
recting  verses,  but  of  remoulding  whole  tragedies, 
several  of  which,  he  tells  us  in  his  Memoirs ,  were 
thus  transcribed  by  him  no  less  than  three  times. 
It  is  remarkable,  that  in  a  country  where  the  ima¬ 
gination  has  been  most  active,  the  labour  of  the  file 
should  have  been  most  diligently  exerted  on  poetical 
compositions.  Such  examples  of  the  pains  taken  by 
men  of  real  genius  might  furnish  a  wholesome  hint 
to  some  of  the  rapid,  dashing  writers  of  our  own  day. 
“Avec  quelque  talent  qu’on  puisse  etre  ne,”  says 
Rousseau,  in  his  Confessions,  “  l’art  d’ecrire  ne  se 
prend  pas  tout  d’un  coup.” 

We  have  violated  the  chronological  series  of  the 
Italian  epopee,  in  our  notice  of  Berni,  in  order  to 
connect  his  poem  with  the  model  on  which  it  was 
cast.  We  will  quit  him  with  the  remark,  that  for 
his  fame  he  seems  to  have  been  as  much  indebted  to 
good  fortune  as  to  desert.  His  countrymen  have 
affixed  his  name  to  an  illustrious  poem  of  which  he 
was  not  the  author,  and  to  a  popular  species  of  com¬ 
position  of  which  he  was  not  the  inventor. 

In  little  more  than  twenty  years  after  the  death 
of  Boiardo,  Ariosto  gave  to  the  world  his  first  edi¬ 
tion  of  the  Orlando  Furioso.  The  celebrity  of  the 

K  K  K 


442  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

Innamorato  made  Ariosto  prefer  building  upon  this 
sure  foundation  to  casting  a  new  one  of  his  own,  and 
as  his  predecessor  had  fortunately  left  all  the  dra¬ 
matis  personae  of  his  unfinished  epic  alive  upon  the 
stage,  he  had  only  to  continue  their  histories  to  the 
end  of  the  drama.  “As  the  former  of  these  two 
poems  has  no  termination,  and  the  latter  no  regular 
beginning,  they  may  both  be  considered  as  forming 
one  complete  epic.”*  The  latter  half  was,  however, 
destined  not  only  to  supply  the  deficiencies,  but  to 
eclipse  the  glories  of  the  former. 

Louis  Ariosto  was  born  of  a  respectable  family  at 
Reggio,  1474.  After  serving  a  reluctant  apprentice¬ 
ship  of  five  years  in  the  profession  of  the  law,  his 
father  allowed  him  to  pursue  other  studies  better 
adapted  to  his  taste  and  poetical  genius.  The  ele¬ 
gance  of  his  lyrical  compositions  in  Latin  and  Ital¬ 
ian  recommended  him  to  the  patronage  of  the  Car¬ 
dinal  Hyppolito  d’Este,  and  of  his  brother  Alphonso, 
who  in  1505  succeeded  to  the  ducal  throne  of  Fer¬ 
rara.  Ariosto’s  abilities  were  found,  however,  not  to 
be  confined  to  poetry,  and,  among  other  offices  of 
trust,  he  was  employed  by  the  duke  in  two  impor¬ 
tant  diplomatic  negotiations  with  the  court  of  Rome. 
But  the  Muses  still  obtained  his  principal  homage, 
and  all  his  secret  leisure  was  applied  to  the  perfect¬ 
ing  of  the  great  poem,  which  was  to  commemorate 
at  once  his  own  gratitude  and  the  glories  of  the 
house  of  Este.  After  fourteen  years  assiduous  la¬ 
bour,  he  presented  to  the  Cardinal  Hyppolito  the 

*  Tasso,  Discorsi  Poetici,  p.  29. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


443 


first  copy  of  his  Orlando  Furioso.  The  well-known 
reply  of  the  prelate,  u  Messer  Lodovico,  dove  mai  avete 
trovate  tante  fanfaluclie  /”  “  Master  Louis,  where 
have  you  picked  up  so  many  trifles  V ’  will  be  remem¬ 
bered  in  Italy  as  long  as  the  poem  itself.* 

Ariosto,  speaking  of  his  early  study  of  jurispru¬ 
dence  in  one  of  his  Satires, f  says  that  he  passed  five 
years  in  quelle  ciancie ;  a  word  which  signifies  much 
the  same  with  the  epithet  fanfaluche  or  coglionerie , 
whichever  it  might  have  been,  imputed  to  the  cardi¬ 
nal.  Ariosto  was  a  poet ;  the  cardinal  was  a  math¬ 
ematician;  and  each  had  the  very  common  failing 
of  undervaluing  a  profession  different  from  his  own. 
The  courtly  librarian  of  the  Biblioteca  Estense  en¬ 
deavours  to  explain  away  this  and  the  subsequent 
conduct  of  Ariosto’s  patron  ;f  but  the  poet’s  Satires, 
in  which  he  alludes  to  the  behaviour  of  the  cardinal 
with  the  fine  raillery,  and  to  his  own  situation  with 
the  philosophic  independence  of  Horace,  furnish 
abundant  evidence  of  the  cold,  ungenerous  deport¬ 
ment  of  Hyppolito.§ 

*  An  interrogation,  which  might  remind  an  Englishman  of  that  put  by 
the  great  Duke  of  Cumberland  to  Gibbon  :  “What,  Mr.  Gibbon,  scribble, 
scribble,  scribble  still!” 

t  A.  M.  Pietro  Bembo  Cardinale. 

+  Storm  della  Lett.  Ital.,  tom.  vii.,  P.  i.,  p.  42,  43. 

§  In  a  satire  addressed  to  Alessandro  Ariosto,  he  speaks  openly  of  the 
unprofitableness  of  his  poetic  labours  : 

“  Thanks  to  the  Muses  who  reward 
So  well  the  service  of  their  bard, 

He  almost  may  be  said  to  lack 
A  decent  coat  to  clothe  his  back.” 

And  soon  after,  in  the  same  epistle,  he  adverts  with  undisguised  in¬ 
dignation  to  the  oppressive  patronage  of  Hyppolito : 


444  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


Notwithstanding  the  alienation  of  the  cardinal, 
the  poet  still  continued  in  favour  with  Alphonso. 
The  patronage  bestowed  upon  him,  however,  seems 
to  have  been  of  a  very  selfish  and  sordid  complex¬ 
ion.  He  was  employed  by  the  duke  in  offices  most 
vexatious  to  one  of  his  studious  disposition,  and  he 
passed  three  years  in  reducing  to  tranquillity  a  bar¬ 
barous,  rebellious  province  of  the  duchy.  His  ad¬ 
venture  there  with  a  troop  of  banditti,  who  aban¬ 
doned  a  meditated  attack  upon  him  when  they  learn¬ 
ed  that  he  was  the  author  of  the  Orlando  Furioso, 
is  a  curious  instance  of  homage  to  literary  talent, 
which  may  serve  as  a  pendant  to  the  similar  anec¬ 
dote  recorded  of  Tasso.* * 

The  latter  portion  of  his  life  was  passed  on  his 

“  If  the  poor  stipend  I  receive 
Has  led  his  highness  to  believe 
He  has  a  right  to  task  my  toil 
Like  any  serf’s  upon  his  soil, 

T’  enthral  me  with  a  servile  chain 
That  grinds  my  soul,  his  hopes  are  vain. 

Sooner  than  be  such  household  slave, 

The  sternest  poverty  I’ll  brave, 

And  from  his  pride  and  presents  free, 

Resume  my  long-lost  liberty.” 

*  Ginguene,  whose  facts  are  never  to  be  suspected,  whatever  credit 
maybe  attached  to  his  opinions,  has  related  both  these  adventures  with¬ 
out  any  qualification  ( Histoire  Litteraire  d'ltalie,  tom.  iv.,  p.  359,  et  V. 
291).  This  learned  Frenchman  professes  to  have  compiled  his  history 
under  the  desire  of  vindicating  Italian  literature  from  the  disparaging 
opinions  entertained  of  it  among  his  countrymen.  This  has  led  him  to 
swell  the  trumpet  of  panegyric  somewhat  too  stoutly — indeed,  much  above 
the  modest  tone  of  the  Italian  savant ,  who,  upon  his  premature  death, 
was  appointed  to  continue  the  work.  Ginguene  died  before  he  had  com¬ 
pleted  the  materials  for  his  ninth  volume,  and  the  hiatus  supplied  by  Pro¬ 
fessor  Salfi  carries  down  the  literary  narrative  only  to  the  conclusion  of 
the  sixteenth  century. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


445 


own  estate  in  comparative  retirement.  He  refused 
all  public  employment,  and,  with  the  exception  of 
his  satires,  and  a  few  comedies  which  he  prepared 
for  the  theatre  committed  to  his  superintendence  by 
Alphonso,  he  produced  no  new  work.  His  hours 
were  diligently  occupied  with  the  emendation  and 
extension  of  his  great  poem;  and  in  1532,  soon  af¬ 
ter  the  republication  of  it  in  forty-six  cantos,  as  it 
now  stands,  he  died  of  a  disease  induced  by  severe 
and  sedentary  application. 

Ariosto  is  represented  to  have  possessed  a  cheer¬ 
ful  disposition,  temperate  habits,  and  their  usual  con¬ 
comitant,  a  good  constitution.  Barotti  has  quoted, 
in  his  memoirs  of  the  poet,  some  particulars  respect¬ 
ing  him,  found  among  the  papers  of  Virginius,  his 
natural  son.  He  is  there  said  not  to  have  been  a 
great  reader;  Horace  and  Catullus  were  the  authors 
in  whom  he  took  most  delight.  His  intense  medi¬ 
tation  upon  the  subject  of  his  compositions  frequent¬ 
ly  betrayed  him  into  fits  of  abstraction,  one  of  which 
is  recorded.  Intending,  on  a  fine  morning,  to  take 
his  usual  walk,  he  set  out  from  Carpi,  where  he  re¬ 
sided,  and  reached  Ferrara  late  in  the  afternoon,  in 
his  slippers  and  robe  de  chambre,  uninterrupted  by 
any  one.  His  patrimony,  though  small,  was  equal  to 
his  necessities.  An  inscription  which  he  placed  over 
his  door  is  indicative  of  that  moderation  and  love  of 
independence  which  distinguished  his  character : 

“  Parva,  sed  apta  mihi,  sed  nulli  obnoxia,  sed  non 
Sordida,  parta  meo  sed  tamen  sere  domus.” 

It  does  not  appear  probable  that  he  was  ever  mar- 


446  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ried.  He  frequently  alludes  in  his  poems  to  some 
object  of  his  affections,  but  without  naming  her. 
His  bronze  inkstand,  still  preserved  in  the  library  at 
Ferrara,  is  surmounted  by  a  relievo  of  a  Cupid  with 
his  finger  upon  his  lip,  emblematic  of  a  discreet  si¬ 
lence  not  very  common  in  these  matters  with  his 
countrymen.  He  is  said  to  have  intended  his  mis¬ 
tress  by  the  beautiful  portrait  of  Ginevra  (c.  iv.,  v.), 
as  Tasso  afterward  shadowed  out  Leonora  in  the 
affecting  episode  of  Sophronia.  This  was  giving 
them,  according  to  Ariosto’s  own  allusion,  a  glorious 
niche  in  the  temple  of  immortality.* 

There  still  existed  a  general  affectation  among 
the  Italian  scholars  of  writing  in  the  Latin  language 
when  Ariosto  determined  to  compose  an  epic  poem. 
The  most  accomplished  proficients  in  that  ancient 
tongue  flourished  about  this  period,  and  Politian, 
Pontano,  Vida,  Sannazarius,  Sadolet,  Bembo,  had 
revived,  both  in  prose  and  poetry,  the  purity,  precis¬ 
ion,  and  classic  elegance  of  the  Augustan  age.  Po¬ 
litian  and  Lorenzo  de  Medici  were  the  only  writers 
of  the  preceding  century  who  had  displayed  the 
fecundity  and  poetical  graces  of  their  vernacular 
tongue,  and  their  productions  had  been  too  few  and 
of  too  trifling  a  nature  to  establish  a  permanent  pre¬ 
cedent.  Bembo,  who  wrote  his  elaborate  history 
first  in  Latin,  and  who  carried  the  complicated  in¬ 
versions,  in  fact,  the  idiom  of  that  language,  into  his 
Italian  compositions,  would  have  persuaded  Ariosto 
to  write  his  poem  in  the  same  tongue ;  but  he  wise- 


*  O.  F.,  can.  xxxv.,  st.  15,  16. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


447 


ly  replied  that  “  he  would  rather  be  first  among 
Tuscan  writers  than  second  among  the  Latin,”  and, 
following  the  impulse  of  his  own  more  discrimina¬ 
ting  taste,  he  gave,  in  the  Orlando  Furioso,  such  an 
exhibition  of  the  fine  tones  and  flexible  movements 
of  his  native  language  as  settled  the  question  of  its 
precedence  forever  with  his  countrymen. 

Ariosto  at  first  intended  to  adopt  the  terza  rima 
of  Dante  ;  indeed,  the  introductory  verses  of  his 
poem  in  this  measure  are  still  preserved.  He  soon 
abandoned  it,  however,  for  the  ottava  rima ,  which  is 
much  better  adapted  to  the  light,  rambling,  pictu¬ 
resque  narrative  of  the  romantic  epic.*  Every  stan¬ 
za  furnishes  a  little  picture  in  itself,  and  the  perpet¬ 
ual  recurrence  of  the  same  rhyme  produces  not  only 
a  most  agreeable  melody  to  the  ear,  but  is  very  fa¬ 
vourable  to  a  full  and  more  powerful  development 
of  the  poet’s  sentiments.  Instances  of  the  truth  of 
this  remark  must  be  familiar  to  every  reader  of  Ari¬ 
osto.  It  has  been  applied  by  Warton,  with  equal 
justice,  to  Spenser,  whom  the  similar  repetition  of 
identical  cadences  often  leads  to  a  copious  and  beau¬ 
tiful  expansion  of  imagery.f  Spenser’s  stanza  dif- 

*  The  Italians,  since  the  failure  of  Trissino,  have  very  generally  adopt¬ 
ed  this  measure  for  their  epic  poetry,  while  the  terza  rima  is  used  for 
didactic  and  satirical  composition.  The  graver  subjects  which  have  en¬ 
gaged  the  attention  of  some  of  their  poets  during  the  last  century  have 
made  blank  verse  ( verso  sciolto )  more  fashionable  among  them.  Cesar- 
otti’s  Ossian,  one  of  the  earliest,  may  be  cited  as  one  of  the  most  suc¬ 
cessful  examples  of  it.  No  nation  is  so  skilful  in  a  nice  adaptation  of 
style  to  the  subject,  and  imitative  harmony  has  been  carried  by  them  to  a 
perfection  which  it  can  never  hope  to  attain  in  any  other  living  language  ; 
for  what  other  language  is  made  so  directly  out  of  the  elements  of  music  1 

f  The  following  stanza  from  the  “  Faerie  Queene,”  describing  the 


448  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

fers  materially  from  the  Italian  ottava  rima ,  in  hav¬ 
ing  one  more  rhyme,  and  in  the  elongated  Alexan¬ 
drine  with  which  it  is  concluded.  This  gave  to  his 
verses  “  the  long,  majestic  march,”  well  suited  to  the 
sober  sublimity  of  his  genius ;  but  the  additional 
rhyme  much  increased  its  metrical  difficulties,  al¬ 
ready,  from  the  comparative  infrequency  of  asso¬ 
nances  in  our  language,  far  superior  to  those  of  the 
Italian.  This  has  few  compound  sounds,  but,  roll¬ 
ing  wholly  upon  the  five  open  vowels,  a ,  e,  i ,  o ,  u , 
affords  a  prodigious  number  of  corresponding  termi¬ 
nations.  Hence  their  facility  of  improvisation.  Vol¬ 
taire  observes  that,  in  the  Jerusalem  Delivered,  not 
more  than  seven  words  terminate  in  u,  and  express¬ 
es  his  astonishment  that  we  do  not  find  a  greater 
monotony  in  the  constant  recurrence  of  only  four 
rhymes.*  The  reason  may  be,  that,  in  Italian  po¬ 
etry,  the  rhyme  falls  both  upon  the  penultima  and 
the  final  syllable  of  each  verse ;  and  as  these  two 
syllables  in  the  same  word  turn  upon  different  vow¬ 
els,  a  greater  variety  is  given  to  the  melody.  This 

habitation  of  Morpheus  “  drowned  deep  in  drowsie  fit,”  may  serve  as  an 
exemplification  of  our  meaning  : 

“  And  more  to  lull  him  in  his  slumber  soft, 

A  trickling  streame  from  high  rock  tumbling  downe, 

And  ever  drizling  raine  upon  the  loft, 

Mixt  with  a  murmuring  winde  much  like  the  sowne 
Of  swarming  bees,  did  cast  him  in  a  swowne  ; 

No  other  noyes  nor  people’s  troublous  cryes 
As  still  are  wont  to  annoy  the  walled  towne 
Might  there  be  heard  ;  but  careless  quiet  lyes, 

Wrapt  in  eternall  silence  farre  from  enemyes.” 


*  Lettre  h  Dcodati  di  Tovazzi. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


449 


double  rhyming  termination,  moreover,  ghes  an  in¬ 
expressible  lightness  and  delicacy  to  Italian  poetry, 
very  different  from  the  broad  comic  which  similar 
compound  rhymes,  no  doubt  from  the  infrequency 
of  their  application  to  serious  subjects,  communicate 
to  the  English. 

Ariosto  is  commonly  most  admired  for  the  inex¬ 
haustible  fertility  of  his  fancy ;  yet  a  large  propor¬ 
tion  of  his  fictions  are  borrowed,  copied,  or  contin¬ 
ued  from  those  of  preceding  poets.  The  elegant 
allegories  of  ancient  superstition,  as  they  were  col¬ 
lected  or  invented  by  Homer  and  Ovid,  the  wild 
adventures  of  the  Norman  romances,  the  licentious 
merriment  of  the  gossiping  fabliaux,  and  the  en¬ 
chantments  of  Eastern  fable,  have  all  been  employed 
in  the  fabric  of  Ariosto’s  epic.  But,  although  this 
diminishes  his  claims  to  an  inventive  fancy,  yet,  on 
the  whole,  it  exalts  his  character  as  a  poet  ;  for 
these  same  fictions  under  the  hands  of  preceding  ro¬ 
mancers,  even  of  Boiardo,  were  cold  and  uninterest¬ 
ing,  or,  at  best,  raised  in  the  mind  of  the  reader  only 
a  stupid  admiration,  like  that  occasioned  by  the  gro¬ 
tesque  and  unmeaning  wonders  of  a  fairy  tale.  But 
Ariosto  inspired  them  with  a  deep  and  living  inter¬ 
est  ;  he  adorned  them  with  the  graces  of  sentiment 
and  poetic  imagery,  and  enlivened  them  by  a  vein 
of  wit  and  shrewd  reflection. 

Ariosto’s  style  is  most  highly  esteemed  by  his 
countrymen.  The  clearness  with  which  it  express¬ 
es  the  most  subtle  and  delicate  beauties  of  sentiment 
may  be  compared  to  Alcina’s 

L  L  L 


450  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

“  Yel  sottile  e  rado, 

Che  non  copria  dinanzi  ne  di  dietro, 

Piu  che  le  rose  o  i  gigli  un  chiaro  vetro.” — C.  vn.,  s.  28.* 

We  recollect  no  English  poet  whose  manner  in  any 
degree  resembles  him.  La  Fontaine,  the  most  ex¬ 
quisite  versifier  of  his  nation,  when  in  his  least  fa¬ 
miliar  mood,  comes  the  nearest  to  him  among  the 
French.  Spence  remarks,  that  Spenser  must  have 
imagined  Ariosto  intended  to  write  a  serious  roman¬ 
tic  poem.  The  same  opinion  has  been  maintained 
by  some  of  the  Italian  critics.  Such,  however,  is 
not  the  impression  we  receive  from  it.  Not  to  men 
tion  the  broad  farce  with  which  the  narrative  is  oc¬ 
casionally  checkered,  as  the  adventures  of  Giocon- 
do,  the  Enchanted  Cup,  &c.,  a  sly,  suppressed  smile 
seems  to  lurk  at  the  bottom  even  of  his  most  serious 
reflections  ;  sometimes,  indeed,  it  plays  openly  upon 
the  surface  of  his  narrative,  but  more  frequently,  af¬ 
ter  a  beautiful  and  sober  description,  it  breaks  out, 
as  it  were,  from  behind  a  cloud,  and  lights  up  the 
whole  with  a  gay  and  comic  colouring.  It  would 
seem  as  if  the  natural  acuteness  of  his  poetic  taste 
led  him  to  discern  in  the  magnanime  mensogne  of 
romantic  fable  abundant  sources  of  the  grand  and 
beautiful,  while  the  anti-chivalric  character  of  his 
age,  and,  still  more,  the  lively  humour  of  his  nation, 
led  him  to  laugh  at  its  extravagances.  Hence  the 
delicate  intermixture  of  serious  and  comic,  which 
gives  a  most  agreeable  variety,  though  somewhat  of 
a  curious  perplexity  to  his  style. 

*  “A  thin  transparent  veil, 

That  all  the  beauties  of  her  form  discloses, 

As  the  clear  crystal  doth  th’  imprison’d  roses.” 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


451 


The  Orlando  Furioso  went  through  six  editions 
in  the  authors  lifetime,  two  of  which  he  supervised, 
and  it  passed  through  sixty  in  the  course  of  the 
same  century.  Its  poetic  pretensions  were  of  too 
exalted  a  character  to  allow  it  to  be  regarded  as  a 
mere  fairy  tale ;  but  it  sorely  puzzled  the  pedantic 
critics,  both  of  that  and  of  the  succeeding  age,  to 
find  out  a  justification  for  admitting  it,  with  all  its 
fantastic  eccentricities,  into  the  ranks  of  epic  poetry. 
Multitudes  have  attacked  and  defended  it  upon  this 
ground,  and  justice  was  not  rendered  to  it  until  the 
more  enlightened  criticism  of  a  later  day  set  all 
things  right  by  pointing  out  the  distinction  between 
the  romantic  and  the  classical.* 

The  cold  and  precise  Boileau,  who,  like  most  of 
his  countrymen,  seems  to  have  thought  that  beauty 
could  wear  only  one  form,  and  to  have  mistaken  the 
beginnings  of  ancient  art  for  its  principles,  quoted 
Horace  to  prove  that  no  poet  had  the  right  to  pro¬ 
duce  such  grotesque  combinations  of  the  tragical 
and  comic  as  are  found  in  Ariosto.f  In  the  last 
century,  Voltaire,  a  critic  of  a  much  wider  range  of 
observation,  objects  to  a  narrow,  exclusive  definition 
of  an  epic  poem,  on  the  just  ground  “  that  works 

*  Hurd  and  T.  Warton  seem  to  have  been  among  the  earliest  English 
writers  who  insisted  upon  the  distinction  between  the  Gothic  and  the 
classical.  In  their  application  of  it  to  Spenser  they  display  a  philosophical 
criticism,  guided  not  so  much  by  ancient  rules  as  by  the  peculiar  genius 
of  modern  institutions.  How  superior  this  to  the  pedantic  dogmas  of  the 
French  school,  or  of  such  a  caviller  as  Rymer,  whom  Dryden  used  to 
quote,  and  Pope  extolled  as  “  the  best  of  English  critics.” 

t  Dissertation  Critique  sur  l’Aventure  de  Joconde.  (Euvres  de  Boileaut 
tom.  ii.,  p.  151. 


452  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

of  imagination  depend  so  much  on  the  different  lan¬ 
guages  and  tastes  of  the  different  nations  among 
whom  they  are  produced,  that  precise  definitions 
must  have  a  tendency  to  exclude  all  beauties  that 
are  unknown  or  unfamiliar  to  us.” — ( Essay  sur  la 
Poesie  Epique .)  In  less  than  forty  pages  farther  we 
find,  however,  that  “the  Orlando  Furioso,  although 
popular  with  the  mass  of  readers,  is  very  inferior  to 
the  genuine  epic  poem .”  Voltaire’s  general  reflec¬ 
tions  were  those  of  a  philosopher;  their  particular 
application  was  that  of  a  Frenchman. 

At  a  later  period  of  his  life  he  made  a  recantation 
of  this  precipitate  opinion  ;  and  he  even  went  so  far, 
in  a  parallel  between  the  Furioso  and  the  Odyssey, 
which  he  considered  the  model  of  the  Italian  poem, 
as  to  give  a  decided  preference  to  the  former.  Ari¬ 
osto’s  imitations  of  the  Odyssey,  however,  are  not 
sufficient  to  authorize  its  being  considered  the  model 
of  his  epic.  Where  these  imitations  do  exist,  they 
are  not  always  the  happiest  efforts  of  his  muse.  The 
tedious  and  disgusting  adventure  of  the  Ogre,  bor¬ 
rowed  from  that  of  the  Cyclops  Polypheme,  is  one 
of  the  greatest  blemishes  in  the  Furioso.  Such 
“Jack  the  giant  killing”  horrors  do  not  blend  hap¬ 
pily  with  the  airy  and  elegant  fictions  of  the  East. 
The  familiarity  of  Ariosto’s  manner  has  an  appa¬ 
rent  resemblance  to  the  simplicity  of  Homer’s,  which 
vanishes  upon  nearer  inspection.  The  unaffected 
ease  common  to  both  resembles,  in  the  Italian,  the 
fashionable  breeding  that  grows  out  of  a  perfect  in¬ 
timacy  with  the  forms  of  good  society.  In  the 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


453 


Greek  it  is  rather  an  artlessness  which  results  from 
never  having  been  embarrassed  by  the  conventional 
forms  of  society  at  all.  Ariosto  is  perpetually  ad¬ 
dressing  his  reader  in  the  most  familiar  tone  of  con¬ 
versation  ;  Homer  pursues  his  course  with  the  un¬ 
deviating  dignity  of  an  epic  poet.  He  tells  all  his 
stories,  even  the  incredible,  with  an  air  of  confiding 
truth.  The  Italian  poet  frequently  qualifies  his 
with  some  sly  reference  or  apology,  as  “  I  will  not 
vouch  for  it ;  I  repeat  only  what  T urpin  has  told  be¬ 
fore  me 

“Mettendo  lo  Turpin,  lo  metto  anch’  io.”* 

Ariosto’s  narratives  are  complicated  and  interrupt¬ 
ed  in  a  most  provoking  manner.  This  has  given  of¬ 
fence  to  some  of  his  warmest  admirers,  and  to  the 
severe  taste  of  Alfieri  in  particular.  Yet  this  fault, 
if  indeed  it  be  one,  seems  imputable  to  the  art,  not 
to  the  artist.  He  but  followed  preceding  romancers, 
and  conformed  to  the  laws  of  his  peculiar  species 
of  poetry.  This  involution  of  the  narrative  may  be 
even  thought  to  afford  a  relief  and  an  agreeable  con¬ 
trast,  by  its  intermixture  of  grave  and  comic  inci¬ 
dents;  at  least,  this  is  the  apology  set  up  for  the 
same  peculiarities  of  our  own  romantic  drama.  But, 
whatever  exceptions  may  be  taken  by  the  acuteness 
or  ignorance  of  critics  at  the  conduct  of  the  Orlando 

*  Voltaire,  with  all  his  aversion  to  local  prejudices,  was  too  national 
to  relish  the  naked  simplicity  of  Homer.  One  of  his  witty  reflections 
may  show  how  he  esteemed  him.  Speaking  of  Virgil’s  obligations  to  the 
Greek  poet,  “  Some  say,”  he  observes,  “that  Homer  made  Virgil ;  if  so, 
this  is,  without  doubt,  the  best  work  he  ever  made  !”  si  cela  est,  c’est  sans 
doute  son  plus  bel  ouvrage. 


454  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

Furioso,  the  sagacity  of  its  general  plan  is  best  vin¬ 
dicated  by  its  wide  and  permanent  popularity  in  its 
own  country.  None  of  their  poets  is  so  universally 
read  by  the  Italians ;  and  the  epithet  divine ,  which 
the  homage  of  an  enlightened  few  had  before  appro¬ 
priated  to  Dante,  has  been  conferred  by  the  voice 
of  the  whole  nation  upon  the  ‘‘Homer  of  Ferrara.”* 
While  those  who  copied  the  classical  models  of  an¬ 
tiquity  are  forgotten,  Ariosto,  according  to  the  beau¬ 
tiful  eulogium  of  Tasso,  “  Partendo  dalle  vestigie 
degli  Antichi  Scrittori  e  dalle  regole  d’Aristotile,  e 
letto  e  riletto  da  tutte  Feta,  da  tutti  i  sessi,  noto  a 
tutte  le  lingue,  ringiovanisce  sempre  nella  sua  fama, 
e  vola  glorioso  per  le  lingue  de’  mortali.”f 

The  name  of  Ariosto  most  naturally  suggests  this 
of  Tasso,  his  illustrious  but  unfortunate  rival  in  the 
same  brilliant  career  of  epic  poetry;  for  these  two 
seem  to  hold  the  same  relative  rank,  and  to  shed  a 
lustre  over  the  Italian  poetry  of  the  sixteenth  cen¬ 
tury,  like  that  reflected  by  Dante  and  Petrarch  upon 
the  fourteenth.  The  interest  always  attached  to 
the  misfortunes  of  genius  has  been  heightened,  in 
the  case  of  Tasso,  by  the  veil  of  mystery  thrown 
over  them  ;  and  while  his  sorrows  have  been  con¬ 
secrated  by  the  “  melodious  tear”  of  the  poet,  the 
causes  of  them  have  furnished  a  most  fruitful  subject 
of  speculation  to  the  historian. 

He  had  been  early  devoted  by  his  father  to  the 
study  of  jurisprudence,  but,  as  with  Ariosto,  a  love 

*  The  name  originally  given  to  him  by  his  rival  Tasso. 

t  ’Discorsi  Poetici,  p.  33. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


455 


for  the  Muses  seduced  him  from  his  severer  duties. 
His  father  remonstrated;  but  Tasso,  at  the  age  of 
seventeen,  produced  his  Rinaldo,  an  epic  in  twelve 
cantos,  and  the  admiration  which  it  excited  through¬ 
out  Italy  silenced  all  future  opposition  on  the  part 
of  his  parent.  In  1565,  Tasso,  then  twenty-one 
years  of  age,  was  received  into  the  family  of  the 
Cardinal  Luigi  d’Este,  to  whom  he  had  dedicated 
his  precocious  epic.  The  brilliant  assemblage  of 
rank  and  beauty  at  the  little  court  of  Ferrara  exci¬ 
ted  the  visions  of  the  youthful  poet,  while  its  richly 
endowed  libraries  and  learned  societies  furnished  a 
more  solid  nourishment  to  his  understanding.  Un¬ 
der  these  influences,  he  was  perpetually  giving  some 
new  display  of  his  poetic  talent.  His  vein  flowed 
freely  in  lyrical  composition,  and  he  is  still  regarded 
as  one  of  the  most  perfect,  models  in  that  saturated 
species  of  national  poetry.  In  1573  he  produced 
his  Aminta ,  which,  in  spite  of  its  conceits  and  pas¬ 
toral  extravagances,  exhibited  such  a  union  of  liter¬ 
ary  finish  and  voluptuous  sentiment  as  was  to  be 
found  in  no  other  Italian  poem.  It  was  translated 
into  all  the  cultivated  tongues  in  Europe,  and  was 
followed,  during  the  lifetime  of  its  author,  by  more 
than  twenty  imitations  in  Italy.  No  valuable  work 
ever  gave  birth  to  a  more  worthless  progeny.  The 
Pastor  Fido  of  Guarini  is  by  far  the  best  of  these 
imitations ;  but  its  elaborate  luxury  of  wit  is  certain¬ 
ly  not  comparable  to  the  simple,  unsolicited  beauties 
of  the  original.  Tasso  was,  however,  chiefly  occu¬ 
pied  with  the  composition  of  his  great  epic.  He 


456  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

had  written  six  cantos  in  a  few  months,  but  he  was 
nearly  ten  years  in  completing  it.  He  wrote  with 
the  rapidity  of  genius,  but  corrected  with  scrupulous 
deliberation.  His  Letters  show  the  unwearied  pains 
which  he  took  to  obtain  the  counsel  of  his  friends, 
and  his  critical  Discourses  prove  that  no  one  could 
stand  less  in  need  of  such  counsel  than  himself.  In 
1575  he  completed  his  Jerusalem  Delivered.  Thus, 
before  he  had  reached  his  thirty-second  year,  Tasso, 
as  a  lyric,  epic,  and  dramatic  writer,  may  be  fairly 
said  to  have  earned  a  threefold  immortality  in  the 
highest  walks  of  his  art.  His  subsequent  fate  shows 
that  literary  glory  rests  upon  no  surer  basis  than  the 
accidental  successes  of  worldly  ambition. 

The  long  and  rigorous  imprisonment  of  Tasso, 
by  the  sovereign  over  whose  reign  his  writings  had 
thrown  such  a  lustre,  has  been  as  fruitful  a  source 
of  speculation  as  the  inexplicable  exile  of  Ovid,  and 
in  like  manner  was,  for  a  long  time,  imputed  to  an 
indiscreet  and  too  aspiring  passion  in  the  poet.  At 
length  Tiraboschi  announced,  in  an  early  edition  of 
his  history,  that  certain  letters  and  original  manu¬ 
scripts  of  Tasso,  lately  discovered  in  the  library  of 
Modena,  had  been  put  into  the  hands  of  the  Abbe 
Serassi  for  the  farther  investigation  of  the  mysterious 
transaction.  The  abbe’s  work  appeared  in  1785, 
and  the  facts  disclosed  by  it  clearly  prove  that  the 
poet’s  passion  for  Leonora  was  not,  as  formerly  ima¬ 
gined,  the  origin  of  his  misfortunes.*  These  may 

*  We  are  only  acquainted  with  Serassi’s  “  Life  of  Tasso”  through  the 
epitomes  of  Fabroni  a  id  Ginguene.  The  latter  writer  seems  to  us  to  lav 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


457 


be  imputed  to  a  variety  of  circumstances,  none  of 
which,  however,  would  have  deeply  affected  a  per- 
son  of  a  less  irritable  or  better  disciplined  fancy. 
The  calumnies  and  petty  insults  which  he  experi¬ 
enced  from  his  rivals  at  the  court  of  Ferrara,  a  clan¬ 
destine  attempt  to  publish  his  poem,  but,  more  than 
all,  certain  conscientious  scruples  which  he  enter¬ 
tained  as  to  the  orthodoxy  of  his  own  creed,  grad¬ 
ually  wrought  upon  his  feverish  imagination  to  such 
a  degree  as  in  a  manner  to  unsettle  his  reason.  He 
fancied  that  his  enemies  were  laying  snares  for  his 
life,  and  that  they  had  concerted  a  plan  for  accusing 
him  of  heresy  before  the  Inquisition.* *  He  privately 
absconded  from  Ferrara,  returned  to  it  a^ain,  but 
soon  after,  disquieted  by  the  same  unhappy  suspi¬ 
cions,  left  it  precipitately  a  second  time,  without  his 
manuscripts,  without  money,  or  any  means  of  sub¬ 
sistence,  and,  after  wandering  from  court  to  court, 
and  experiencing,  in  the  sorrowful  language  of  Dante, 

“  Come  sa  di  sale 

Lo  pane  altrui,  e  com’  e  duro  calle, 

Lo  scendere  e  ’1  salir  per  raltrui  scale, ”f 

greater  stress  upon  the  poet’s  passion  for  Leonora  than  is  warranted  by 
his  facts.  Tasso  dedicated,  it  is  true,  many  an  elegant  sonnet  to  her 
charms,  and  distorted  her  name  into  as  many  ingenious  puns  as  did  Pe¬ 
trarch  that  of  his  mistress  ;  but  when  we  consider  that  this  sort  of  poet¬ 
ical  tribute  is  very  common  with  the  Italians,  that  the  lady  was  at  least 
ten  years  older  than  the  poet,  and  that,  in  the  progress  of  this  passion,  he 
had  four  or  five  other  well-attested  subordinate  flames,  we  shall  have 
little  reason  to  believe  it  produced  a  deep  impression  on  his  character. 

*  His  “  Letters”  betray  the  same  timid  jealousy.  He  is  perpetually 
complaining  that  his  correspondence  is  watched  and  intercepted. 

\  “  How  salt  the  savour  is  of  other’s  bread, 

How  hard  the  passage  to  descend  and  climb 
By  other’s  stairs.” — Carey. 

M  M  M 


458  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

lie  threw  himself  once  more  upon  the  clemency  of 
Alphonso ;  but  the  duke,  already  alienated  from  him 
by  his  past  extravagances,  was  incensed  to  such  a 
degree  by  certain  intemperate  expressions  of  anger 
in  which  the  poet  indulged  on  his  arrival  at  the 
court,  that  he  caused  him  to  be  confined  in  a  mad¬ 
house  (j Hospital  of  St.  Anne). 

Here,  in  the  darkness  and  solitude  of  its  meanest 
cell,  disturbed  only  by  the  cries  of  the  wretched  in¬ 
mates  of  the  mansion,  he  languished  two  years  un¬ 
der  the  severest  discipline  of  a  refractory  lunatic. 
Montaigne,  in  his  visit  to  Italy,  saw  him  in  this  hu¬ 
miliating  situation,  and  his  reflections  upon  it  are 
even  colder  than  those  which  usually  fall  from  the 
phlegmatic  philosopher.*  The  genius  of  Tasso, 
however,  broke  through  the  gloom  of  his  dungeon, 
and  several  of  the  lyrical  compositions  of  his  impris¬ 
oned  muse  were  as  brilliant  and  beautiful  as  in  the 
day  of  her  prosperity.  The  distempered  state  of  his 
imagination  seems  never  to  have  clouded  the  vivid¬ 
ness  of  his  perceptions  on  the  subjects  of  his  com¬ 
position,  and  during  the  remaining  five  years  of  his 
confinement  at  St.  Anne,  he  wrote,  in  the  form  of 
dialogues,  several  highly-esteemed  disquisitions  on 
philosophical  and  moral  theorems.  During  this  lat- 

*  “  I  felt  even  more  spite  than  compassion  to  see  him  in  so  miserable 
a  state,  surviving,  as  it  were,  himself,  unmindful  either  of  himself  or  his 
works,  which,  without  his  concurrence,  and  before  his  eyes,  were  pub¬ 
lished  to  the  world  incorrect  and  deformed.” — Essais  de  Montaigne ,  tom. 
v.,  p.  114.  Montaigne  doubtless  exaggerated  the  mental  degradation  of 
Tasso,  since  it  favoured  a  position  which,  in  the  vain  love  of  paradox 
that  has  often  distinguished  his  countrymen,  he  was  then  endeavouring 
to  establish,  viz.,  the  superiority  of  stupidity  and  ignorance  over  genius. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


459 


ter  period  Tasso  had  enjoyed  a  more  commodious 
apartment,  but  the  duke,  probably  dreading  some 
literary  reprisal  from  his  injured  prisoner,  resisted 
all  entreaties  for  his  release.  This  was  at  length 
effected,  through  the  intercession  of  the  Prince  of 
Mantua,  in  1586. 

Tasso  quitted  Ferrara  without  an  interview  with 
his  oppressor,  and  spent  the  residue  of  his  days  in 
the  south  of  Italy.  His  countrymen,  affected  by  his 
unmerited  persecutions,  received  him  wherever  he 
passed  with  enthusiastic  triumph.  The  nobility  and 
the  citizens  of  Florence  waited  upon  him  in  a  body, 
as  if  to  make  amends  for  the  unjust  strictures  of 
their  academy  upon  his  poem,  and  a  day  was  ap¬ 
pointed  by  the  court  of  Rome  for  his  solemn  coro¬ 
nation  in  the  capitol  with  the  poetic  wreath  which 
had  formerly  encircled  the  brow  of  Petrarch.  He 
died  a  few  days  before  the  intended  ceremony.  His 
body,  attired  in  a  Roman  toga,  was  accompanied  to 
the  grave  by  nobles  and  ecclesiastics  of  the  highest 
dignity,  and  his  temples  were  decorated  with  the 
laurel,  of  which  his  perverse  fortune  had  defrauded 
him  when  living. 

The  unhappy  fate  of  Tasso  has  affixed  a  deep 
stain  on  the  character  of  Alphonso  the  Second. 
The  eccentricities  of  his  deluded  fancy  could  not 
have  justified  seven  years  of  solitary  confinement, 
either  as  a  medicine  or  as  a  punishment,  least  of  all 
from  the  man  whose  name  he  had  so  loudly  cele¬ 
brated  in  one  of  the  most  glorious  productions  of 
modern  genius.  What  a  caustic  commentary  upon 


460  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

his  unrelenting  rigour  must  Alphonso  have  found  in 
one  of  the  opening  stanzas  of  the  Jerusalem: 

“  Tu,  magnanimo  Alfonso,  il  qual  ritogli 
A1  furor  di  fortuna,  e  guidi  in  porto 
Me  peregrino  errante,  e  fra  gli  scogli 
E  fra  l’onde  agitato,  e  quasi  assorto  ; 

Queste  mie  carte  in  lieta  fronte  accogli,”  &c. 

The  illiberal  conduct  of  the  princes  of  Este,  both 
towards  Ariosto  and  Tasso,  essentially  diminishes 
their  pretensions  to  the  munificent  patronage  so  ex¬ 
clusively  imputed  to  them  by  their  own  historians, 
and  by  the  eloquent  pen  of  Gibbon.*  A  more  ac¬ 
curate  picture,  perhaps,  of  the  second  Alphonso  may 
be  found  in  the  concluding  canto  of  Childe  Harold, 
where  the  poet,  in  the  language  of  indignant  sensi¬ 
bility,  not  always  so  judiciously  directed,  has  ren¬ 
dered  more  than  poetical  justice  to  the  “  antique 
brood  of  Este.” 

The  Jerusalem  was  surreptitiously  published,  for 
the  first  time,  during  Tasso’s  imprisonment,  and, 
notwithstanding  the  extreme  inaccuracy  of  its  early 
editions,  it  went  through  no  less  than  six  in  as  many 
months.  Others  grew  rich  on  the  productions  of  an 
author  who  was  himself  languishing  in  the  most  ab- 

*  Muratori’s  Antichita  Estensi  are  expressly  intended  to  record  the 
virtues  of  the  family  of  Este.  Tiraboschi’s  Storia  della  Letteratura  Ital- 
iana  is  a  splendid  panegyric  upon  the  intellectual  achievements  of  the 
whole  nation.  More  than  a  due  share  of  this  praise,  however,  is  claim¬ 
ed  for  his  native  princes  of  Ferrara.  It  is  amusing  to  see  by  what  eva¬ 
sions  the  historian  attempts  to  justify  their  conduct  both  towards  Tasso 
and  Ariosto.  Gibbon,  who  had  less  apology  for  partiality,  in  his  laborious 
researches  into  the  “Antiquities  of  the  House  of  Brunswick”  has  not 
tempered  his  encomiums  of  the  Alphonsos  with  a  single  animadversion 
upon  their  illiberal  conduct  towards  their  two  illustrious  subjects. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


461 


ject  poverty  ;  one  example  out  of  many  of  the  in¬ 
security  of  literary  property  in  a  country  where  the 
number  of  distinct  independent  governments  almost 
defeats  the  protection  of  a  copyright.* 

Notwithstanding  the  general  admiration  which 
the  Jerusalem  excited  throughout  Italy,  it  was  as¬ 
sailed,  on  its  first  appearance,  with  the  coarsest  crit¬ 
icism  it  ever  experienced.  A  comparison  was  nat¬ 
urally  suggested  between  it  and  the  Orlando  Furioso, 
and  the  Italians  became  divided  into  the  factions  of 
Tassisti  and  Ariostisti.  The  Della  Cruscan  Acad¬ 
emy,  just  then  instituted,  in  retaliation  of  some  ex¬ 
travagant  encomiums  bestowed  on  the  Jerusalem, 
entered  into  an  accurate,  but  exceedingly  intemper¬ 
ate  analysis  of  it,  in  which  they  degraded  it,  not 
only  below  the  rival  epic,  but,  denying  it  the  name 
of  a  poem ,  spoke  of  it  as  “  a  cold  and  barren  compi¬ 
lation/’  It  is  a  curious  fact,  that  both  the  Della 
Cruscan  and  French  Academies  commenced  their 
career  of  criticism  with  an  unlucky  attack  upon  two 
of  the  most  extraordinary  poems  in  their  respective 
languages.! 

Although  Tasso  was  only  one-and-twenty  years 
of  age  when  he  set  about  writing  his  Jerusalem,  yet 
it  is  sufficiently  apparent,  from  the  sagacious  criticism 
exhibited  in  his  letters,  that  he  brought  to  it  a  mind 

*  “Foreigners,”  says  Denina,  “who  ask  if  there  are  great  writers  in 
Italy  now,  as  in  times  past,  would  be  surprised  at  the  number,  were  they 
to  learn  how  much  even  the  best  of  them  are  brought  in  debt  by  the  pub¬ 
lication  of  their  own  works.” — Vicende  della  Lttteratura,  tom.  ii ,  p.  326. 

t  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  refer  to  Corneille’s  “  Cid ,”  so  clumsily  anat¬ 
omized  by  the  Academie  Franqaise  at  the  jealous  instigation  of  Cardinal 
Richelieu. 


462  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCEI  LANIES. 

ripened  by  extensive  studies  and  careful  meditation. 
He  had,  moreover,  the  advantage  of  an  experience 
derived  both  from  his  own  previous  labours  and 
those  of  several  distinguished  predecessors  in  the 
same  kind  of  composition.  The  learned  Trissino 
had  fashioned,  some  years  before,  a  regular  heroic 
poem,  with  pedantic  precision,  upon  the  models  of 
antiquity.  From  this  circumstance,  it  was  so  formal 
and  tedious  that  nobody  could  read  it.  Bernardo 
Tasso,  the  father  of  Torquato,  who  might  apply  to 
himself,  with  equal  justice,  the  reverse  of  the  younger 
Racine’s  lament, 

“  Et  moi  pere  inconnu  d’un  si  glorieux  fils,” 

had  commenced  his  celebrated  Amadis  with  the 
same  deference  to  the  rules  of  Aristotle.  Finding 
that  the  audiences  of  his  friends,  to  whom  he  was 
accustomed  to  read  the  epic  as  it  advanced,  grad¬ 
ually  thinned  off,  he  had  the  discretion  to  take  the 
hint,  and  new  cast  it  in  a  more  popular  and  roman¬ 
tic  form.  Notwithstanding  these  inauspicious  ex¬ 
amples,  Tasso  was  determined  to  give  to  his  national 
literature  what  it  so  much  wanted,  a  great  heroic 
poem;  his  fine  eye  perceived  at  once,  however,  all 
the  advantages  to  be  derived  from  the  peculiar  insti¬ 
tutions  of  the  moderns,  and,  while  he  conformed,  in 
the  general  plan  of  his  epic,  to  the  precepts  of  an¬ 
tiquity,  he  animated  it  with  the  popular  and  more 
exalted  notions  of  love,  of  chivalry,  and  of  religion. 
His  Jerusalem  exhibits  a  perfect  combination  of  the 
romantic  and  the  classical. 

The  subject  which  he  selected  was  most  happily 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


463 


adapted  to  his  complicated  design.  However  gloomy 
a  picture  the  Crusades  may  exhibit  to  the  rational 
historian,  they  are  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and  im¬ 
posing  ever  offered  to  the  eye  of  the  poet.  It  is 
surprising  that  a  subject  so  fruitful  in  marvellous  and 
warlike  adventure,  and  which  displays  the  full  tri¬ 
umph  of  Christian  chivalry,  should  have  been  so 
long  neglected  by  the  writers  of  epical  romance. 
The  plan  of  the  Jerusalem  is  not  without  defects, 
which  have  been  pointed  out  by  the  Italians,  and 
bitterly  ridiculed  by  Voltaire,  whose  volatile  sarcasms 
have  led  him  into  one  or  two  blunders,  that  have 
excited  much  wrath  among  some  of  Tasso’s  coun¬ 
trymen.*  The  conceits  which  occasionally  glitter 
on  the  surface  of  Tasso’s  clear  and  polished  style 
have  afforded  another  and  a  fair  ground  for  censure. 
Boileau’s  metaphorical  distich,  however,  has  given 
to  them  an  undeserved  importance.  The  epithet 
tinsel  (clinquant),  used  by  him  without  any  limita¬ 
tion,  was  quoted  by  his  countrymen  as  fixing  the 
value  at  once  of  all  Tasso’s  compositions,  and  after¬ 
ward,  by  an  easy  transition,  of  that  of  the  whole 
body  of  Italian  literature.  Boileau  subsequently  di¬ 
luted  this  censure  of  the  Italian  poet  with  some  par¬ 
tial  commendations  ;f  but  its  ill  effects  were  visible 

*  Among  other  heinous  slanders,  he  had  termed  the  musical  bird  “  di 
color  vari”  “e  purpureo  rostro”  in  Armida’s  gardens,  a  “  parrot ,”  and  the 
“  fatal  Donzella”  (canto  xv.),  “  whose  countenance  was  beautiful  like 
that  of  the  angels,”  an  “  old  woman,”  which  his  Italian  censor  assures 
his  countrymen  “is  much  worse  than  a  vecchia  donna.”  For  the  burst 
of  indignation  which  these  and  similar  sins  brought  upon  Voltaire’s  head, 
vide  “  Annotazioni  ai  Canti”  xv.,  xvi.  Clas.  Ital. 

t  Both  Ginguene  and  some  Italian  critics  affect  to  consider  these  com- 


464  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

in  the  unfavourable  prejudices  which  it  left  on  the 
minds  of  his  own  countrymen,  and  on  those  of  the 
English  for  nearly  a  century. 

The  affectations  imputed  to  Tasso  are  to  be  tra¬ 
ced  to  a  much  more  remote  origin.  Petrarch’s  best 
productions  are  stained  with  them,  as  are  those  of 
preceding  poets,  Cino  da  Pistoja,  Guido  Cavalcanti, 
and  others,*  and  they  seem  to  have  flowed  directly 
from  the  Provencale,  the  copious  fountain  of  Italian 
lyrical  poetry.  Tiraboschi  referred  their  introduc¬ 
tion  to  the  influence  of  Spanish  literature  under  the 
viceroys  of  Naples  during  the  latter  part  of  the  six¬ 
teenth  century,  which  provoked  a  patriotic  replica¬ 
tion,  in  seven  volumes,  from  the  Spanish  Abbe  Lain- 
pillas.  The  Italian  had  the  better  of  his  adversary 
in  temper,  if  not  in  argument  This  false  refinement 
was  brought  to  its  height  during  the  first  half  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  under  Marini  and  his  imitators, 
and  it  is  somewhat  maliciously  intimated  by  Denina 
that  the  foundation  of  the  Academy  Della  Crusca 
corresponds  with  the  commencement  of  the  decay  of 

mendations  as  an  amende  honorable  on  the  part  of  Boileau.  They,  how 
ever,  amount  to  very  little,  and,  like  the  Frenchman’s  compliment  to 
Yorick,  have  full  as  much  of  bitter  as  of  sweet  in  them.  The  remarks 
quoted  by  D’Olivet  (Histoire  de  l’Academie  Franqaise),  as  having  been 
made  by  the  critic  a  short  time  previous  to  his  death,  are  a  convincing 
proof,  on  the  other  hand,  that  he  was  tenacious  to  the  last  of  his  original 
heresy.  “  So  little,”  said  he,  “  have  I  changed,  that,  on  reviewing  Tasso 
of  late,  I  regretted  exceedingly  that  I  had  not  been  more  explicit  in  my 
strictures  upon  him.”  He  then  goes  on  to  supply  the  hiatus  by  taking 
up  all  the  blemishes  in  detail  which  he  had  before  only  alluded  to  en  gros . 

*  These  veteran  versifiers  have  been  condensed  into  two  volumes 
8vo,  in  an  edition  published  at  Florence,  1816,  under  the  title  of  Poeti  del 
Primo  Secolo. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


465 


good  taste.*  Some  of  their  early  publications  prove 
that  they  have  at  least  as  good  a  claim  to  be  consid¬ 
ered  its  promoters  as  Tasso.f 

Tasso  is  the  most  lyrical  of  all  epic  poets.  This 
often  weakens  the  significance  and  picturesque  de¬ 
lineation  of  his  narrative,  by  giving  to  it  an  ideal 
and  too  general  character.  His  eight  line  stanza  is 
frequently  wrought  up,  as  it  were,  into  a  miniature 
sonnet.  He  himself  censures  Ariosto  for  occasion¬ 
ally  indulging  this  lyrical  vein  in  his  romance,  and 
cites  as  an  example  the  celebrated  comparison  of 
the  virgin  and  the  rose  (can.  i.,  s.  42).  How  many 
similar  examples  may  be  found  in  his  own  epic  ! 
The  gardens  of  Armida  are  full  of  them.  To  this 
cause  we  may  perhaps  ascribe  the  glittering  affecta¬ 
tions,  the  clinquant  so  often  noticed  in  his  poetry. 
Dazzling  and  epigrammatic  points  are  often  solicit¬ 
ed  in  sonnets.  To  the  same  cause  may  be  referred, 
in  part,  the  nicely-adjusted  harmony  of  his  verses. 

*  Vicende  della  Letter atur a,  tom.  ii. ,  p.  52. 

t  A  distinction  seems  to  be  authorized  between  the  ancients  and  the 
moderns  in  regard  to  what  is  considered  'purity  of  taste.  The  earliest 
writings  of  the  former  are  distinguished  by  it,  and  it  fell  into  decay  only 
with  the  decline  of  the  nation  ;  while  a  vicious  taste  is  visible  in  the 
earliest  stages  of  modern  literature,  and  it  has  been  corrected  only  by 
the  corresponding  refinement  of  the  nation.  The  Greek  language  was 
written  in  classic  purity  from  Homer  until  long  after  Greece  herself  had 
become  tributary  to  the  Romans,  and  the  Latin  tongue  from  the  time 
of  Terence  till  the  nation  had  sacrificed  its  liberties  to  its  emperors ; 
while  the  early  Italian  authors,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  Spaniards 
in  the  age  of  Ferdinand,  the  English  in  that  of  Elizabeth,  and  the  French 
under  Francis  the  First  (the  epochs  which  may  fix  the  dawn  of  their  re¬ 
spective  literatures),  seem  to  have  been  deeply  infected  with  a  passion 
for  conceits  and  quibbles,  which  has  been  purified  only  by  the  diligent 
cultivation  of  ages. 


N  N  N 


466  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

It  would  almost  seem  as  if  each  stanza  was  meant 
to  be  set  to  music,  as  Petrarch  is  known  to  have 
composed  many  of  his  odes  with  this  view.*  The 
melodious  rhythm  of  Tasso’s  verse  has  none  of  the 
monotonous  sweetness  so  cloying  in  Metastasio.  It 
is  diversified  by  all  the  modulations  of  an  exquisite¬ 
ly  sensible  ear.  For  this  reason,  no  Italian  poet  is 
so  frequently  in  the  mouths  of  the  common  people. 
Ariosto’s  familiar  style  and  lively  narrative  are  bet¬ 
ter  suited  to  the  popular  apprehension ;  but  the  lyr¬ 
ical  melody  of  Tasso  triumphs  over  these  advantages 
in  his  rival,  and  enables  him  literally  virum  volitare 
• per  ora.  It  was  once  common  for  the  Venetian 
gondoliers  to  challenge  each  other,  and  to  respond 
in  the  verses  of  the  Jerusalem,  and  this  sort  of  mu¬ 
sical  contest  might  be  heard  for  hours  in  the  silence 
of  a  soft  summer  evening.  The  same  beautiful  bal¬ 
lads,  if  we  may  so  call  these  fragments  of  an  epic, 
are  still  occasionally  chanted  by  the  Italian  peasant, 
who  is  less  affected  by  the  sublimity  of  their  senti¬ 
ments  than  the  musical  flow  of  the  expression.! 

Tasso’s  sentiments  are  distinguished,  in  our  opin¬ 
ion,  by  a  moral  grandeur  surpassing  that  of  any  other 
Italian  poet.  His  devout  mind  seems  to  have  been 
fully  inspired  with  the  spirit  of  his  subject.  We  say 
in  our  opinion,  for  an  eminent  German  critic,  F. 


*  Foscolo,  “  Essay,"  &c.,  p.  93. 

t  “  The  influence  of  metrical  harmony  is  visible  in  the  lower  classes, 
who  commit  to  memory  the  stanzas  of  Tasso,  and  sing  them  without 
comprehending  them.  They  even  disfigure  the  language  so  as  to  make 
nonsense  of  it,  their  senses  deceived  all  the  while  by  the  unmeaning 
melody.” — Pignotti,  Storia,  &c.,  tom.  iv.,  p.  192. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


467 


Schlegel,  is  disposed  to  deny  him  this  merit.  We 
think  in  this  instance  he  must  have  proposed  to  him¬ 
self  what  is  too  frequent  with  the  Germans,  an  ideal 
and  exaggerated  standard  of  elevation.  A  few  stan¬ 
zas  (st.  1  to  19)  in  the  fourth  canto  of  the  Jerusalem 
may  be  said  to  contain  almost  the  whole  argument 
of  the  Paradise  Lost.  The  convocation  of  the  dev¬ 
ils  in  the  dark  abyss,*  the  picture  of  Satan,  whom  he 
injudiciously  names  Pluto,  his  sublime  address  to  his 
confederates,  in  which  he  alludes  to  their  rebellion 
and  the  subsequent  creation  of  man,  were  the  germs 
of  Milton’s  most  glorious  conceptions.  Dante  had 
before  shadowed  forth  Satan,  but  it  was  only  in  the 
physical  terrors  of  a  hideous  aspect  and  gigantic 
stature.  The  ancients  had  clothed  the  Furies  in 
the  same  external  deformities.  Tasso,  in  obedieace 
to  the  superstitions  of  his  age,  gave  to  the  devil 
similar  attributes,  but  he  invested  his  character  with 
a  moral  sublimity  which  raised  it  to  the  rank  of  di¬ 
vine  intelligences : 

“  Ebbero  i  piu  felici  allor  vittoria 
Rimase  a  noi  d’invitto  ardir  la  gloria.” 

“  Sia  destin  cio  ch’io  voglio.” 

In  the  literal  version  of  Milton, 

“  What  I  will  is  fate.” 

Sentiments  like  these  also  give  to  Satan,  in  Paradise 

*  The  semi-stanza,  which  describes  the  hoarse  reverberations  of  the 
infernal  trumpet  in  this  Pandemonium,  is  cited  by  the  Italians  as  a  happy 
example  of  imitative  harmony  : 

“  Chiama  gli  abitator  dell’ombre  eterne 
II  rauco  suon  della  tartarea  tromba. 

Treman  le  spaziose  atre  caverne, 

E  l’aer  cieco  a  quel  romor  rimbomba.” 


468  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


Lost,  his  superb  and  terrific  majesty.  Milton,  how¬ 
ever,  gave  a  finer  finish  to  the  portrait,  by  dispen¬ 
sing  altogether  with  the  bugbear  deformities  of  his 
person,  and  by  depicting  it  as  a  form  that 

“  Had  yet  not  lost 

All  its  original  brightness,  nor  appear’d 
Less  than  archangel  ruin’d.” 

It  seems  to  us  a  capital  mistake  in  Tasso  to  have 
made  so  little  use  of  the  diablerie  which  he  has  so 
powerfully  portrayed.  Almost  all  the  machinations 
of  the  infidels  in  the  subsequent  cantos  turn  upon 
the  agency  of  petty  necromancers. 

Tasso  frequently  deepens  the  expression  of  his 
pictures  by  some  skilful  moral  allusion.  How  finely 
has  he  augmented  the  misery  of  the  soldier,  perish¬ 
ing  under  a  consuming  drought  before  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem,  by  recalling  to  his  imagination  the  cool 
and  crystal  waters  with  which  he  had  once  been 
familiar : 

Se  alcun  giammai  tra  frondeggianti  rive 
Puro  vide  stagnar  liquido  argento, 

O  giu  precipitose  ir  acque  vive 

Per  Alpe,  o’n  piaggia  erbosa  a  passo  lento ; 

Quelle  al  vago  desio  forma  e  descrive, 

E  ministra  materia  al  suo  tormento  ; 

Che  l’imagine  lor  gelida  e  molle 
L’asciuga  e  scalda,  e  nel  pensier  ribolle.”* 

Can.  xiii.,  st.  60. 

*  “  He  that  the  gliding  rivers  erst  had  seen 

Adown  their  verdant  channels  gently  roll’d, 

Or  falling  streams,  which  to  the  valleys  green 
Distill’d  from  tops  of  Alpine  mountains  cold, 

Those  he  desired  in  vain,  newr  torments  been 
Augmented  thus  with  wish  of  comforts  old  ; 

Those  waters  cool  he  drank  in  vain  conceit, 

Which  more  increased  his  thirst,  increased  his  heat.” — Fairfax 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


469 


In  all  the  manifold  punishments  of  Dante’s  “  Hell” 
we  remember  one  only  in  which  the  mind  is  made 
use  of  as  a  means  of  torture.  A  counterfeiter  {bar- 
ratiere )  contrasts  his  situation  in  these  dismal  regions 
with  his  former  pleasant  residence  in  the  green  vale 
of  the  Arno ;  an  allusion  which  adds  a  new  sting  to 
his  anguish,  and  gives  a  fine  moral  colouring  to  the 
picture.  Dante  was  the  first  great  Christian  poet 
that  had  written  ;  and  when,  in  conformity  with  the 
charitable  spirit  of  his  age,  he  assigned  all  the  an¬ 
cient  heathens  a  place  either  in  his  liell  or  purga¬ 
tory, ,  he  inflicted  upon  them  corporeal  punishments 
which  alone  had  been  threatened  by  their  poets. 

Both  Ariosto  and  Tasso  elaborated  the  style  of 
their  compositions  with  infinite  pains.  This  labour, 
however,  led  them  to  the  most  opposite  results.  It 
gave  to  the  Furioso  the  airy  graces  of  elegant  con¬ 
versation  ;  to  the  Gerusalemme  a  stately  and  impo¬ 
sing  eloquence.  In  this  last  you  may  often  find  a 
consummate  art  carried  into  affectation,  as  in  the 
former  natural  beauty  is  sometimes  degraded  into 
vulgarity,  and  even  obscenity.  Ariosto  has  none  of 
the  national  vices  of  style  imputed  to  his  rival,  but 
he  is  tainted  with  the  less  excusable  impurities  of 
sentiment.  It  is  stated  by  a  late  writer  that  the  ex¬ 
ceptionable  passages  in  the  Furioso  were  found 
crossed  out  with  a  pen  in  a  manuscript  copy  of  the 
author,  showing  his  intention  to  have  suppressed 
them  at  some  future  period.  The  fact  does  not  ap¬ 
pear  probable,  since  the  edition,  as  it  now  stands, 
with  all  its  original  blemishes,  was  revised  and  pub¬ 
lished  by  himself  the  year  of  his  death. 


470  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


Tasso  possessed  a  deeper,  a  more  abstracted,  and 
lyrical  turn  of  thought.  Ariosto  infuses  an  active, 
worldly  spirit  into  his  poetry  ;  his  beauties  are  social, 
while  those  of  his  rival  are  rather  of  a  solitary  com¬ 
plexion.  Ariosto’s  muse  seems  to  have  caught  the 
gossiping  spirit  of  the  fabliaux,  and  Tasso’s  the  lyr¬ 
ical  refinements  of  th e  Provencale.  Ariosto  is  seldom 
sublime  like  the  other.  This  may  be  imputed  to 
his  subject,  as  well  as  to  the  character  of  his  genius. 
Owing  to  his  subject,  he  is  more  generally  entertain¬ 
ing.  The  easy  freedom  of  his  narrative  often  leads 
him  into  natural  details  much  more  affecting  than 
the  ideal  generalization  of  Tasso.  How  pathetic 
is  the  dying  scene  of  Brandimarte,  with  the  half-fin¬ 
ished  name  of  his  mistress,  Fiordiligi,  upon  his  lip : 

“  Orlando,  fa  che  ti  raccordi 
Di  me  nell’  orazion  tue  grate  a  Dio  ; 

Ne  men  ti  raccomando  la  mia  Fiordi  .... 

Ma  dir  non  pote  ligi ;  e  qui  fimo.”* 

Tasso  could  never  have  descended  to  this  beautiful 
negligence  of  expression.f 

*  “  Orlando,  I  implore  thee 

That  in  thy  prayers  my  name  may  be  commended, 

And  to  thy  care  I  leave  my  loved  Fiordi — 

Ligi  he  could  not  add  ;  but  here  he  ended.” 
t  The  ideal ,  which  we  have  imputed  to  Tasso,  may  be  cited,  however, 
as  a  characteristic  of  the  national  literature,  and  as  the  point  in  which 
their  literature  is  most  decidedly  opposed  to  our  own.  With  the  excep¬ 
tion  of  Dante  and  Parini,  whose  copies  from  life  have  all  the  precision 
of  proof  impressions,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  picture  in  the  compass 
of  Italian  poetry  executed  with  the  fidelity  to  nature  so  observable  in  our 
good  authors,  so  apparent  in  every  page  of  Cowper  or  Thomson,  for 
example.  It  might  be  well,  perhaps,  for  the  English  artist,  if  he  could 
embellish  the  minute  and  literal  details  of  his  own  school  with  some  of 
the  ideal  graces  of  the  Italian.  Byron  may  be  considered  as  having  done 
this  more  effectually  than  any  contemporary  poet.  Byron’s  love  of  the 


I 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


471 


Tasso  challenged  a  comparison  with  his  prede¬ 
cessor  in  his  gardens  of  Armida.  The  indolent  and 
languishing  repose  of  the  one,  the  brisk,  amorous 
excitement  of  the  other,  are  in  some  measure  char¬ 
acteristic  of  their  different  pencils.  The  parallel 
has  been  too  often  pursued  for  us  to  weary  our  read¬ 
ers  with  it. 

The  Italians  have  a  copious  variety  of  narrative 
poetry,  and  are  very  nice  in  their  subdivisions  of  it. 
Without  attending  to  these,  we  have  been  guided 
by  its  chronological  succession.  We  have  hardly 
room  to  touch  upon  the  “  Secchia  Rapita”  ( Rape  of 
the  Bucket)  of  Tassoni,  the  model  of  the  mock-he¬ 
roic  poems  afterward  frequent  in  Italy,*  of  Boileaffs 
Butrin ,  and  of  the  Rape  of  the  Lock.  Tassoni,  its 
author,  was  a  learned  and  noble  Modenese,  who,  af¬ 
ter  a  life  passed  in  the  heats  of  literary  controversies, 
to  which  he  had  himself  given  rise,  died  1635,  aged 
seventy-one.  The  subject  of  the  poem  is  a  war  be- 


ideal,  it  must  be  allowed,  however,  has  too  often  bewildered  him  in  mys¬ 
ticism  and  hyperbole. 

*  The  Italians  long  disputed  with  great  acrimony  whether  this  or  the 
comic  heroic  poem  of  Bracciolini  (Lo  Scherno  degli  Dei)  was  precedent 
in  point  of  age.  It  appears  probable  that  Tassoni’s  was  written  first, 
although  printed  last.  No  country  has  been  half  so  fruitful  as  Italy  in 
literary  quarrels,  and  in  none  have  they  been  pursued  with  such  bitter¬ 
ness  and  pertinacity.  In  some  instances,  as  in  that  of  Marini,  they  have 
even  been  maintained  by  assassination.  The  sarcastic  commentaries 
of  Galileo  upon  the  “Jerusalem,”  quoted  in  the  vulgar  edition  of  the 
“  Classics,”  were  found  sadly  mutilated  by  one  of  the  offended  Tassisti, 
into  whose  hands  they  had  fallen  more  than  two  centuries  after  they 
were  written  ;  so  long  does  a  literary  faction  last  in  Italy !  The  Ital¬ 
ians,  inhibited  from  a  free  discussion  on  political  or  religious  topics,  en¬ 
ter  with  incredible  zeal  into  those  of  a  purely  abstract  and  often  unim¬ 
portant  character. 


472  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

tween  Modena  and  Bologna,  at  the  commencement 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  in  consequence  of  a  wood¬ 
en  bucket  having  been  carried  off  from  the  market- 
place  in  the  latter  city  by  an  invading  party  of  the 
former.  This  memorable  trophy  has  been  preserved 
down  to  the  present  day  in  the  Cathedral  of  Modena. 
Tassoni’s  epic  will  confer  upon  it  a  more  lasting  ex¬ 
istence. 

“  The  Bucket,  which  so  sorely  had  offended, 

In  the  Great  Tower,  where  yet  it  may  be  found, 

Was  from  on  high  by  ponderous  chain  suspended, 

And  with  a  marble  cope  environ’d  round. 

By  portals  five  the  entrance  is  defended  ; 

Nor  cavalier  of  note  is  that  way  bound, 

Nor  pious  pilgrim,  but  doth  pause  to  see 

The  spoil  so  glorious  of  the  victory.” — Canto  i.,  st.  63 

Gironi,  in  his  life  of  the  poet,  triumphantly  addu¬ 
ces,  in  evidence  of  the  superiority  of  the  Italian  epic 
over  the  French  mock-heroic  poem  of  Boileau,  that 
the  subject  of  the  former  is  far  more  insignificant 
than  that  of  the  latter,  and  yet  the  poem  has  twelve 
cantos,  being  twice  the  number  of  the  Lutrin.  He 
might  have  added  that  each  canto  contains  about 
six  hundred  lines  instead  of  two  hundred,  the  aver¬ 
age  complement  of  the  French,  so  that  Tassoni’s 
epic  has  the  glory  of  being  twelve  times  as  long  as 
Boileau’s,  and  all  about  a  bucket !  This  is  some¬ 
what  characteristic  of  the  Italians.  What  other  peo¬ 
ple  would  good-humouredly  endure  such  an  inter¬ 
minable  epic  upon  so  trivial  an  affair,  which  had 
taken  place  more  than  four  centuries  before  ?  To 
make  amends,  however,  for  the  want  of  pungency 
in  a  satire  on  transactions  of  such  an  antiquated  date, 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


473 


Tassoni  lias  besprinkled  his  poem  very  liberally  with 
allusions  to  living  characters. 

We  may  make  one  general  objection  to  the  poem, 
that  it  is  often  too  much  in  earnest  for  the  perfect 
keeping  of  the  mock  heroic.  The  cutting  of  throats 
and  fighting  regular  pitched  battles  are  too  bloody  a 
business  for  a  joke.  How  much  more  in  the  genu¬ 
ine  spirit  of  this  species  of  poetry  is  the  bloodless 
battle  with  the  books  in  the  Lutrin  ! 

The  machinery  employed  by  Tassoni  is  compo¬ 
sed  of  the  ancient  heathen  deities.  These  are  fre¬ 
quently  brought  upon  the  stage,  and  are  travestied 
with  the  coarsest  comic  humour.  But  the  burlesque 
which  reduces  great  things  to  little  is  of  a  grosser 
and  much  less  agreeable  sort  than  that  which  mag¬ 
nifies  little  things  into  great.  The  “Rape  of  the 
Lock”  owes  its  charms  to  the  latter  process.  The 
importance  which  it  gives  to  the“blegant  nothings 
of  high  life,  its  perpetual  sparkling  of  wit,  the  fairy 
fretwork  which  constitutes  its  machinery,  have  made 
it  superior,  as  a  fine  piece  of  irony,  to  either  of  its 
foreign  rivals.  A  Frenchman  would  doubtless  pre¬ 
fer  the  epic  regularity,  progressive  action,  and  smooth 
seesaw  versification  of  the  Lutrin  ;*  while  an  Italian 
would  find  sufficient  in  the  grand  heroic  sentiment 
and  the  voluptuous  portraiture  with  which  Tassoni’s 
unequal  poem  is  occasionally  inlaid,  to  justify  his 


*  The  versification  of  the  Lutrin  is  esteemed  as  faultless  as  any  in  the 
language.  The  tame  and  monotonous  flow  of  the  best  of  French  rhyme, 
however,  produces  an  effect,  at  least  upon  a  foreign  ear,  which  has  been 
well  likened  by  one  of  their  own  nation  to  “  the  drinking  of  cold  water.” 

O  o  o 


474  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

preference  of  it.  There  is  no  accounting  for  na¬ 
tional  taste.  La  Harpe,  the  Aristarchus  of  French 
critics,  censures  the  gossamer  machinery  of  the 
“Rape  of  the  Lock”  as  the  greatest  defect  in  the 
poem.  “La  fable  des  Sylphes,  que  Pope  a  tres  inu- 
tilement  empruntee  du  Conte  de  Gabalis,  pour  en 
faire  le  merveilleux  de  son  poeme,  n’y  produit  rien 
d’ agreable,  rien  d' inter essant !” 

Italy,  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
was  inundated  with  crude  and  insipid  romances, 
distributed  into  all  the  varieties  of  epic  poetry.  The 
last  one,  however,  of  sufficient  importance  to  require 
our  notice,  namely,  the  Ricciardetto  of  Nicholas  For- 
tiguerra,  appeared  as  late  as  1738.  After  two  cen¬ 
turies  of  marvellous  romance,  Charlemagne  and  his 
paladins  became  rather  insipid  dramatis  persons. 
What  could  not  be  handled  seriously,  however, 
might  be  ridiculed  ;  and  the  smile,  half  suppressed 
by  Ariosto  and  Berni,  broke  out  into  broad  buffoon¬ 
ery  in  the  poem  of  Fortiguerra. 

The  Ricciardetto  may  be  considered  the  Don 
duixote  of  Italy  ;  for  although  it  did  not  bring  about 
that  revolution  in  the  national  taste  ascribed  to  the 
Spanish  romance,  yet  it  is,  like  that,  an  unequivocal 
parody  upon  the  achievements  of  knight  errantry. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  Don  duixote  itself  was 
not  the  consequence  rather  than  the  cause  of  the 
revolution  in  the  national  taste.  F ortiguerra  pursued 
an  opposite  method  to  Cervantes,  and,  instead  of  in¬ 
troducing  his  crack-brained  heroes  into  the  realities 
of  vulgar  life,  he  made  them  equally  ridiculous  by 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


475 


involving  them  in  the  most  absurd  caricatures  of  ro- 
mantic  fiction.  Many  of  these  adventures  are  of  a 
licentious,  and  sometimes  of  a  disgusting  nature  ;  but 
the  graceful  though  negligent  beauties  of  his  style 
throw  an  illusive  veil  over  the  grossness  of  the  nar¬ 
rative.  Imitations  of  Pulci  may  be  more  frequently 
traced  than  of  any  other  romantic  poet.  But,  al¬ 
though  more  celebrated  writers  are  occasionally,  and 
the  extravagances  of  chivalry  are  perpetually  paro¬ 
died  by  Fortiguerra,  yet  his  object  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  deliberate  satire  so  much  as  good-humour¬ 
ed  jesting.  What  he  wrote  was  for  the  simple  pur¬ 
pose  of  raising  a  laugh,  not  for  the  derision  or  the  cor¬ 
rection  of  the  taste  of  his  countrymen.  The  tenden¬ 
cy  of  his  poem  is  certainly  satirical,  yet  there  is  not 
a  line  indicating  such  an  intention  on  his  part.  The 
most  pointed  humour  is  aimed  at  the  clergy.*  For¬ 
tiguerra  was  himself  a  canon.  He  commenced  his 
epic  at  the  suggestion  of  some  friends  with  whom 
he  was  passing  a  few  weeks  of  the  autumn  at  a  hunt¬ 
ing  seat.  The  conversation  turned  upon  the  labour 
bestowed  by  Pulci,  Berni,  and  Ariosto  on  their  great 

*  One  of  the  leading  characters  is  Ferragus,  who  had  figured  in  all 
the  old  epics  as  one  of  the  most  formidable  Saracen  chieftains.  He 
turns  hermit  with  Fortiguerra,  and  beguiles  his  lonely  winter  evenings 
with  the  innocent  pastime  of  making  candles. 

“  E  ne  l’orrida  bruma 
Quando  l’aria  e  piu  fredda,  e  piu  crudele, 

Io  mi  diverto  in  far  de  le  candele.” — hi.,  53. 

A  contrast  highly  diverting  to  the  Italians,  who  had  been  taught  to  as¬ 
sociate  very  lofty  ideas  with  the  name  of  Ferragus.  The  conflict  kept 
up  between  the  devout  scruples  of  the  new  saint  and  his  old  heathen 
appetites  affords  perpetual  subjects  for  the  profane  comi. 


476  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


poems;  and  Fortigaerra  undertook  to  furnish,  the 
next  day,  a  canto  of  good  poetry,  exhibiting  some  of 
the  peculiarities  of  their  respective  styles.  He  ful¬ 
filled  his  promise,  and  his  friends,  delighted  with  its 
sprightly  graces,  persuaded  him  to  pursue  the  epic 
to  its  present  complement  of  thirty  cantos.  Any 
one  acquainted  with  the  facilities  for  improvisation 
afforded  by  the  flexible  organization  of  the  Italian 
tongue  will  be  the  less  surprised  at  the  rapidity  of 
this  composition.  The  “Ricciardetto”  may  be  look¬ 
ed  upon  as  a  sort  of  improvisation. 

In  the  following  literal  version  of  the  two  opening 
stanzas  of  the  poem  we  have  attempted  to  convey 
some  notion  of  the  sportive  temper  of  the  original : 

“  It  will  not  let  my  busy  brain  alone  ; 

The  whim  has  taken  me  to  write  a  tale 
In  poetry,  of  things  till  now  unknown, 

Or  if  not  wholly  new,  yet  nothing  stale. 

My  muse  is  not  a  daughter  of  the  Sun, 

With  harp  of  gold  and  ebony ;  a  hale 
And  buxom  country  lass,  she  sports  at  ease, 

And,  free  as  air,  sings  to  the  passing  breeze, 

“Yet,  though  accustom’d  to  the  wood — its  spring 
Her  only  beverage,  and  her  food  its  mast, 

She  will  of  heroes  and  of  battles  sing, 

The  loves  and  high  emprizes  of  the  past. 

Then  if  she  falter  on  so  bold  a  wing, 

Light  be  the  blame  upon  her  errors  cast ; 

She  never  studied  ;  and  she  well  may  err, 

Whose  home  hath  been  beneath  the  oak  and  fir.” 

Fortiguerra’s  introductions  to  his  cantos  are  sea¬ 
soned  with  an  extremely  pleasant  wit,  which  Lord 
Byron  has  attentively  studied,  and,  in  some  passages 
of  his  more  familiar  poetry,  closely  imitated.  The 
stanza,  for  example,  in  Beppo,  beginning 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


477 


“  She  was  not  old,  nor  young,  nor  at  the  years 
Which  certain  people  call  a  certain  age , 

Which  yet  the  most  uncertain  age  appears,”-  &c., 

was  evidently  suggested  by  the  following  in  Ricci- 
ardetto : 

“  Quando  si  giugne  ad  una  certa  eta, 

Ch’io  non  voglio  descrivervi  qual  e, 

Bisogna  stare  allofa  a  quel  ch’un  ha, 

Ne  d’altro  amante  provar  piu  la  fe, 

Perche,  donne  me  care,  la  belta 

Ha  1’  ali  al  capo,  alle  spalle,  ed  a’  pie ; 

E  vola  si,  che  non  si  scorge  piu 
Vestigio  alcun  ne’  visi,  dove  fu.” 

Byron’s  wit,  however,  is  pointed  with  a  keener  sar¬ 
casm,  and  his  serious  reflections  show  a  finer  per¬ 
ception,  both  of  natural  and  moral  beauty,  than  be¬ 
long  to  the  Italian.  No  two  things  are  more  remote 
from  each  other  than  sentiment  and  satire.  In 
“Don  Juan”  they  are  found  side  by  side  in  almost 
every  stanza.  The  effect  is  disagreeable.  The 
heart,  warmed  by  some  picture  of  extreme  beauty 
or  pathos,  is  suddenly  chilled  by  a  selfish  sneer,  a 
cold-blooded  maxim,  that  makes  you  ashamed  of 
having  been  duped  into  a  good  feeling  by  the  writer 

even  for  a  moment.  It  is  a  melancholv  reflection, 

*/  * 

that  the  last  work  of  this  extraordinary  poet  should 
be  the  monument  alike  of  his  genius  and  his  infamy. 
Voltaire’s  licentious  epic,  the  “  Pucelle,”  is  written 
in  a  manner,  perhaps,  more  nearly  corresponding  to 
that  of  the  Italian  ;  but  the  philosophical  irony,  if 
wre  may  so  call  it,  which  forms  the  substratum  of  the 
more  familiar  compositions  of  this  witty  and  profli¬ 
gate  author,  is  of  somewhat  too  deep  a  cast  for  the 
light,  superficial  banter  of  Fortiguerra. 


478  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

We  have  now  traced  the  course  of  Italian  narra¬ 
tive  poetry  down  to  the  middle  of  the  last  century. 
It  has  by  no  means  become  extinct  since  that  pe¬ 
riod,  and,  among  others,  an  author  well  known  here 
by  his  history  of  our  Revolutionary  war  has  con¬ 
tributed  his  share  to  the  epopee  of  his  country,  in 
his  “  Camillo,  o  Vejo  Conquistata.”  Almost  every 
Italian  writer  has  a  poetic  vein  within  him,  which, 
if  it  does  not  find  a  vent  in  sonnets  or  canzones,  will 
flow  out  into  more  formidable  compositions.* 

In  glancing  over  the  long  range  of  Italian  narra¬ 
tive  poems,  one  may  be  naturally  led  to  the  reflec¬ 
tion  that  the  most  prolific  branch  of  the  national 
literature  is  devoted  exclusively  to  purposes  of  mere 
amusement.  Brilliant  inventions,  delicate  humour, 
and  a  beautiful  colouring  of  language  are  lavished 
upon  all ;  but  with  the  exception  of  the  “Jerusalem,” 
we  rarely  meet  with  sublime  or  ennobling  sentiment, 
and  very  rarely  with  anything  like  a  moral  or  philo¬ 
sophical  purpose.  Madame  de  Stael  has  attempted 
to  fasten  a  reproach  on  the  whole  body  of  Italian 
letters,  “  that,  with  the  exception  of  their  works  on 
physical  science,  they  have  never  been  directed  to 
utility.” f  The  imputation  applied  in  this  almost 
unqualified  manner  is  unjust.  The  language  has 
been  enriched  by  the  valuable  reflections  of  too  many 
historians,  the  solid  labours  of  too  many  antiquaries 

*  Boccaccio,  Machiavelli,  Bembo,  Varchi,  Castiglione,  Pignotti,  Botta, 
and  a  host  of  other  classic  prose  writers  of  Italy,  have  all  confessed  the 
“  impetus  sacer,”  and  given  birth  to  epics,  lyrics,  or  bucolics. 

f  “  Tous  les  ouvrages  des  Italiens,  excepte  ceux  qui  traitent  des  sci¬ 
ences  physiques,  n’ont  jamais  pour  but  Tutilite.” — De  la  Litteraturc,  $c. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


479 


and  critics,  to  be  thus  lightly  designated.  The  learn¬ 
ed  lady  may  have  found  a  model  for  her  own  com¬ 
prehensive  manner  of  philosophizing,  and  an  ample 
refutation  of  her  assertion  in  Machiavelli  alone.* 
In  their  works  of  imagination,  however,  such  an  im¬ 
putation  appears  to  be  well  merited.  The  Italians 
seemed  to  demand  from  these  nothing  farther  than 
from  a  fine  piece  of  music,  where  the  heart  is  stir¬ 
red,  the  ear  soothed,  but  the  understanding  not  a 
whit  refreshed.  The  splendid  apparitions  of  their 
poet’s  fancy  fade  away  from  the  mind  of  the  reader, 
and,  like  the  enchanted  fabrics  described  in  their  ro¬ 
mances,  leave  not  a  trace  behind  them. 

In  the  works  of  fancy  in  our  language,  fiction  is 
almost  universally  made  subservient  to  more  impor¬ 
tant  and  nobler  purposes.  The  ancient  drama,  and 
novels,  the  modern  prose  drama,  exhibit  historical 
pictures  of  manners  and  accurate  delineations  of 
character.  Most  of  the  English  poets  in  other 
walks,  from  the  “  moral  Gower”  to  Cowper,  Crabbe, 
and  Wordsworth,  have  made  their  verses  the  ele¬ 
gant  vehicles  of  religious  or  practical  truth.  Even 

*  We  say  manner,  not  spirit.  The  “  Discors  isopra  T.  Livio,”  how¬ 
ever,  require  less  qualification  on  the  score  of  their  principles.  They 
obviously  furnished  the  model  to  the  “  Grandeur  et  Decadence  des  Ro- 
mains,”  and  the  same  extended  philosophy  which  Montesquieu  imitated 
in  civil  history,  Madame  de  Stael  has  carried  into  literary. 

Among  the  historians,  antiquaries,  &c.,  whose  names  are  known  where 
the  language  is  not  read,  we  might  cite  Guicciardini,  Bembo,  Sarpi,  Gi- 
annone,  Nardi,  Davila,  Denina,  Muratori,  Tiraboschi,  Gravina,  Bettinelli, 
Algarotti,  Beccaria,  Filanghieri,  Cesarotti,  Pignotti,  and  many  others ; 
a  hollow  muster-roll  of  names  that  it  would  be  somewhat  ridiculous  to 
run  over,  did  not  their  wide  celebrity  expose,  in  a  stronger  light,  Mad 
ame  de  Stael’s  sweeping  assertion. 


480  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

descriptive  poetry  in  England  interprets  the  silence 
of  external  nature  into  a  language  of  sentiment  and 
devotion.  It  is  characteristic  of  this  spirit  in  the 
nation  that  Spenser,  the  only  one  of  their  classic 
writers  who  has  repeated  the  fantastic  legends  of 
chivalry,  deemed  it  necessary  to  veil  his  Italian  fancy 
in  a  cloud  of  allegory,  which,  however  it  may  be 
thought  to  affect  the  poem,  shows  unequivocally  the 
didactic  intention  of  the  poet. 

These  grave  and  extended  views  are  seldom  visi¬ 
ble  in  the  ornamental  writing  of  the  Italians.  It 
rarely  conveys  useful  information,  or  inculcates  moral 
or  practical  truth ;  but  it  is  too  commonly  an  ele¬ 
gant,  unprofitable  pastime.  Novelle,  lyrical,  and  epic 
poetry  may  be  considered  as  constituting  three  prin¬ 
cipal  streams  of  their  lighter  literature.  These  have 
continued  to  flow,  with  little  interruption,  the  two 
first  from  the  “  golden  urns”  of  Petrarch  and  Boc¬ 
caccio,  the  last  from  the  early  sources  we  have  al¬ 
ready  traced  down  to  the  present  day.  Their  mul¬ 
titudinous  novelle,  with  all  their  varieties  of  tragic 
and  comic  incident,  the  last  by  far  the  most  frequent, 
present  few  just  portraitures  of  character,  still  fewer 
examples  of  sound  ethics  or  wise  philosophy.*  In 
the  exuberance  of  their  sonnets  and  canzone,  we  find 
some,  it  is  true,  animated  by  an  efficient  spirit  of  re- 

*  The  heavier  charge  of  indecency  lies  upon  many.  The  Novelle  of 
Casti,  published  as  late  as  1804,  make  the  foulest  tales  of  Boccaccio  ap¬ 
pear  fair  beside  them.  They  have  run  through  several  editions  since 
their  first  appearance,  and  it  tells  not  well  for  the  land  that  a  numerous 
class  of  readers  can  be  found  in  it  who  take  delight  in  banqueting  upon 
such  abominable  offal. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


481 


ligion  or  patriotism ;  but  too  frequently  they  are  of 
a  purely  amatory  nature,  the  unsubstantial  though 
brilliant  exhalations  of  a  heated  fancy.  The  pas¬ 
toral  drama,  the  opera,  and  other  beautiful  varieties 
of  invention,  which,  under  the  titles  of  Bernesco, 
Burlesco,  Maccheronico,  and  the  like,  have  been 
nicely  classed  according  to  their  different  modifica¬ 
tions  of  style  and  humour,  while  they  manifest  the 
mercurial  temper  and  the  originality  of  the  nation, 
(Confirm  the  justice  of  our  position. 

The  native  melody  of  the  Italian  tongue,  by  se¬ 
ducing  their  writers  into  an  overweening  attention 
to  sound,  has  doubtless  been  in  one  sense  prejudicial 
to  their  literature.  We  do  not  mean  to  imply,  in 
conformity  with  a  vulgar  opinion,  that  the  language 
is  deficient  in  energy  or  compactness.  Its  harmony 
is  no  proof  of  its  weakness.  It  allows  more  licenses 
of  contraction  than  any  other  European  tongue,  and 
retains  more  than  any  other  the  vigorous  inversions 
of  its  Latin  original.  Dante  is  the  most  concise  of 
early  moderns,  and  we  know  none  superior  to  Alfi- 
eri  in  this  respect  among  those  of  our  own  age. 
Davanzati’s  literal  translation  of  Tacitus  is  conden¬ 
sed  into  a  smaller  compass  than  its  original,  the  most 
sententious  of  ancient  histories ;  but  still  the  silver 
tones  of  a  language  that  almost  sets  itself  to  music 
as  it  is  spoken,  must  have  an  undue  attraction  for 
the  harmonious  ear  of  an  Italian.  Their  very  first 
classical  model  of  prose  composition  is  an  obvious 
example  of  it. 

The  frequency  of  improvisation  is  another  circum- 

P  p  p 


482  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

stance  that  has  naturally  tended  to  introduce  a  less 
serious  and  thoughtful  habit  of  composition.  Above 
all,  the  natural  perceptions  of  an  Italian  seem  to  be 
peculiarly  sensible  to  beauty ,  independent  of  every 
other  quality.  Any  one  who  has  been  in  Italy  must 
have  recognised  the  glimpses  of  a  pure  taste  through 
the  rags  of  the  meanest  beggar.  The  musical  pieces, 
when  first  exhibited  at  the  theatre  of  St.  Carlos,  are 
correctly  pronounced  upon  by  the  Lazzaroni  of  Na¬ 
ples,  and  the  mob  of  Florence  decide  with  equal  ac¬ 
curacy  upon  the  productions  of  their  immortal  school. 
Cellini  tells  us  that  he  exposed  his  celebrated  statue 
of  Perseus  in  the  public  square  by  order  of  his  pa¬ 
tron,  Duke  Cosmo  First,  who  declared  himself  per¬ 
fectly  satisfied  with  it  on  learning  the  commenda¬ 
tions  of  the  people.*  It  is  not  extraordinary  that 
this  exquisite  sensibility  to  the  beautiful  should  have 
also  influenced  them  in  literary  art,  and  have  led 
them  astray  sometimes  from  the  substantial  and  the 
useful.  Who  but  an  Italian  historian  would,  in  this 
practical  age,  so  far  blend  fact  and  fiction  as,  for  the 
sake  of  rhetorical  effect,  to  introduce  into  the  mouths 
of  his  personages  sentiments  and  speeches  never  ut¬ 
tered  by  them,  as  Botta  has  lately  done  in  his  his¬ 
tory  of  the  American  War? 

In  justice,  however,  to  the  Italians,  we  must  ad¬ 
mit,  that  the  reproach  incurred  by  too  concentrated 
an  attention  to  beauty,  to  the  exclusion  of  more  en¬ 
larged  and  useful  views  in  their  lighter  compositions, 
does  not  fall  upon  this  or  the  last  century.  They 

i 

*  Vita  di  Benvo.  Cellin.,  tom.  ii.,  p.  339. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


483 


have  imbibed  a  graver  and  more  philosophical  cast 
of  reflection,  for  which  they  seem  partly  indebted  to 
the  influence  of  English  literature.  Several  of  their 
most  eminent  authors  have  either  visited  or  resided 
in  Great  Britain,  and  the  genius  of  the  language  has 
been  made  known  through  the  medium  of  skilful 
translations.  Alfieri  has  transported  into  his  trage¬ 
dies  the  solemn  spirit  and  vigorous  characterization 
peculiar  to  the  English.  He  somewhere  remarks 
that  “  he  could  not  read  the  language but  we  are 
persuaded  his  stern  pen  would  never  have  traced  the 
dying  scene  of  Saul,  had  he  not  witnessed  a  repre¬ 
sentation  of  Macbeth.  Ippolito  Pindemonte,  in  his 
descriptive  pieces,  has  deepened  the  tones  of  his  na¬ 
tive  idiom  with  the  moral  melancholy  of  Gray  and 
Cowper.  Monti’s  compositions,  both  dramatic  and 
miscellaneous,  bear  frequent  testimony  to  his  avowed 
admiration  for  Shakspeare ;  and  Cesarotti,  Foscolo, 
and  Pignotti  have  introduced  the  “  severer  muses” 
of  the  north  to  a  still  wider  and  more  familiar  ac¬ 
quaintance  with  their  countrymen.*  Lastly,  among 
the  works  of  fancy  which  attest  the  practical  scope 
of  Italian  letters  in  the  last  century,  we  must  not 
omit  the  “  Giorno”  of  Parini,  the  most  curious  and 
nicely-elaborated  specimen  of  didactic  satire  produ¬ 
ced  in  any  age  or  country.  Its  polished  irony,  point- 

*  Both  the  prose  and  poetry  of  Foscolo  are  pregnant  with  more  se¬ 
rious  meditation  and  warmer  patriotism  than  is  usual  in  the  works  of 
the  Italians.  Pignotti,  although  his  own  national  manner  has  been  but 
little  affected  by  his  foreign  erudition,  has  contributed  more  than  any 
other  to  extend  the  influence  of  English  letters  among  his  countrymen. 
His  works  abound  in  allusions  to  them,  and  two  of  his  principal  poems 
are  dedicated  to  the  memory  of  Shakspeare  and  of  Pope. 


484  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ed  at  the  domestic  vices  of  the  Italian  nobility,  indi- 
cates  both  the  profligacy  of  the  nation  and  the  moral 
independence  of  the  poet. 

The  Italian  language,  the  first-born  of  those  de¬ 
scended  from  the  Latin,  is  also  the  most  beautiful. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  a  people  endowed  with  an 
exquisite  sensibility  to  beauty  should  have  been 
often  led  to  regard  this  language  rather  as  a  means 
of  pleasure  than  of  utility.  We  must  not,  however, 
so  far  yield  to  the  unqualified  imputation  of  Madame 
de  Stael  as  to  forget  that  they  have  other  claims  to 
our  admiration  than  what  arise  from  the  inventions 
of  the  poet,  or  from  the  ideal  beauties  which  they 
have  revived  of  Grecian  art;  that  the  light  of  genius 
shed  upon  the  world  in  the  fourteenth,  and  that  of 
learning  in  the  fifteenth  century,  was  all  derived 
from  Italy ;  that  her  writers  first  unfolded  the  sub¬ 
limity  of  Christian  doctrines  as  applied  to  modern 
literature,  and  by  their  patient,  philological  labours 
restored  to  life  the  buried  literature  of  antiquity; 
that  her  schools  revived  and  expounded  the  ancient 
code  of  law,  since  become  the  basis  of  so  important 
a  branch  of  jurisprudence  both  in  Europe  and  our 
own  country ;  that  she  originated  literary,  and 
brought  to  a  perfection  unequalled  in  any  other  lan¬ 
guage,  unless  it  be  our  own,  civil  and  political  his¬ 
tory  ;  that  she  led  the  way  in  physical  science  and 
in  that  of  political  philosophy ;  and,  finally,  that  of 
the  two  enlightened  navigators  who  divide  the  glory 
of  adding  a  new  quarter  to  the  globe,  the  one  was  a 
Genoese  and  the  other  a  Florentine. 


ITALIAN  NARRATIVE  POETRY. 


485 


In  following  clown  the  stream  of  Italian  narrative 
poetry,  we  have  wandered  into  so  many  details,  es¬ 
pecially  where  they  would  tend  to  throw  light  on 
the  intellectual  character  of  the  nation,  that  we  have 
little  room,  and  our  readers,  doubtless,  less  patience, 
left  for  a  discussion  of  the  poems  which  form  the 
text  of  our  article.  The  few  stanzas  descriptive  of 
Berni,  which  we  have  borrowed  from  the  Innamo- 
rato,  may  give  some  notion  of  Mr.  Rose’s  manner. 
The  translations  have  been  noticed  in  several  of  the 
English  journals,  and  we  perfectly  accord  with  the 
favourable  opinion  of  them,  which  has  been  so  often 
expressed  that  it  needs  not  here  be  repeated. 

The  composite  style  of  Ariosto  owes  its  charms 
to  the  skill  with  which  the  delicate  tints  of  his  irony 
are  mixed  with  the  sober  colouring  of  his  narrative. 
His  translators  have  spoiled  the  harmony  of  the 
composition  by  overcharging  one  or  other  of  these 
ingredients.  Harrington  has  caricatured  his  original 
into  burlesque  ;  Hoole  has  degraded  him  into  a  most 
melancholy  proser.  The  popularity  of  this  latter 
version  has  been  of  infinite  disservice  to  the  fame  of 
Ariosto,  whose  aerial  fancy  loses  all  its  buoyancy 
under  the  heavy  hexameters  of  the  English  transla¬ 
tor.  The  purity  of  Mr.  Rose’s  taste  has  prevented 
him  from  exaggerating  even  the  beauties  of  his 
original. 


486  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS  * 

JULY,  1831. 

It  is  not  our  intention  to  go  into  an  analysis,  or 
even  to  discuss  the  merits  of  the  works  at  the  head 
of  this  article,  which  we  have  selected  only  as  a  text 
for  such  reflections  on  the  poetry  and  ornamental 
prose-writing  of  the  Italians  as  might  naturally  sug¬ 
gest  themselves  to  an  English  reader.  The  points 
of  view  from  which  a  native  contemplates  his  own 
literature  and  those  from  which  it  is  seen  by  a  for¬ 
eigner  are  so  dissimilar,  that  it  would  be  hardly  pos¬ 
sible  that  they  should  come  precisely  to  the  same 
results  without  affectation  or  servility  on  the  part  of 
the  latter.  The  native,  indeed,  is  far  better  qualified 
than  any  foreigner  can  be  to  estimate  the  produc¬ 
tions  of  his  own  countrymen ;  but  as  each  is  sub¬ 
jected  to  peculiar  influences,  truth  may  be  more 
likely  to  be  elicited  from  a  collision  of  their  mutual 
opinions  than  from  those  exclusively  of  either. 

The  Italian,  although  the  first  modern  tongue  to 
produce  what  still  endure  as  classical  models  of  com¬ 
position,  was,  of  all  the  Romance  dialects,  the  last 

*  [The  reader  may  find  in  this  article  some  inadvertent  repetitions  of 
what  had  been  said  in  two  articles  written  some  years  before,  and  cov¬ 
ering,  in  part,  the  same  ground.] 

1.  “  Della  Letteratura  Italiana,  Di  Camillo  Ugoni.” — 3  tom.  12mo. 
Brescia,  1820. 

2.  “  Storia  della  Letteratura  Italiana.  Del  cavaliere  Giuseppe  MatTei.*' 
—3  tom.  12mo.  Milano,  1825. 

3.  “  Storia  della  Letteratura  Italiana  nel  secolo  XVIII.  di  Antonio 
Lombardi.” — 3  tom.  8vo.  Modena,  1827-9. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  487 


to  be  applied  to  literary  purposes.  The  poem  of  the 
Cid,  which,  with  all  its  rawness,  exhibits  the  frank 
bearing  of  the  age  in  a  highly  poetic  aspect,  was 
written  nearly  a  century  previously  to  this  event. 
The  northern  French,  which  even  some  Italian 
scholars  of  that  day  condescended  to  employ  as  the 
most  popular  vehicle  of  thought,  had  been  richly 
cultivated,  indemnifying  itself  in  anticipation,  as  it 
were,  by  this  extraordinary  precocity,  for  the  poetic 
sterility  with  which  it  has  been  cursed  ever  since. 
In  the  South,  and  along  the  shores  of  the  Mediter¬ 
ranean,  every  remote  corner  was  alive  with  the 
voice  of  song.  A  beautiful  poetry  had  ripened  into 
perfection  there,  and  nearly  perished,  before  the  first 
lispings  of  the  Italian  muse  were  heard,  not  in  her 
own  land,  but  at  the  court  of  a  foreigner,  in  Sicily. 
The  poets  of  Lombardy  wrote  in  the  Provencal. 
The  histories — and  almost  every  city  had  its  histo¬ 
rian,  and  some  two  or  three — were  composed  in 
Latin,  or  in  some  half-formed,  discordant  dialect  of 
the  country.  “  The  Italian  of  that  age,”  says  Tira- 
boschi,  “more  nearly  resembled  the  Latin  than  the 
Tuscan  does  now  any  of  her  sister  dialects.”  It 
seemed  doubtful  which  of  the  conflicting  idioms 
would  prevail,  when  a  mighty  genius  arose,  who, 
collecting  the  scattered  elements  together,  formed 
one  of  those  wonderful  creations  which  make  an 
epoch  in  the  history  of  civilization,  and  forever  fixed 
the  destinies  of  his  language. 

We  shall  not  trouble  our  readers  with  a  particu¬ 
lar  criticism  on  so  popular  a  wTork  as  the  Divine 


488  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


Comedy,  but  confine  ourselves  to  a  few  such  desul¬ 
tory  observations  as  have  been  suggested  on  a  repe¬ 
rusal  of  it.  The  Inferno  is  more  frequently  quoted 
and  eulogized  than  any  other  portion  of  the  Coin- 
media.  It  exhibits  a  more  marked  progress  of  the 
action,  and,  while  it  affects  us  by  its  deepened  pic¬ 
tures  of  misery,  it  owes,  no  doubt,  something  to  the 
piquant  personalities  which  have  to  this  day  not 
entirely  lost  their  relish.  Notwithstanding  this,  it 
by  no  means  displays  the  whole  of  its  author’s  in¬ 
tellectual  power,  and  so  very  various  are  the  merits 
of  the  different  portions  of  his  epic,  that  one  who 
has  not  read  the  whole  may  be  truly  said  not  to 
have  read  Dante.  The  poet  has  borrowed  the  hints 
for  his  punishments  partly  from  ancient  mythology, 
partly  from  the  metaphorical  denunciations  of  Scrip¬ 
ture,  but  principally  from  his  own  inexhaustible  fan¬ 
cy  ;  and  he  has  adapted  them  to  the  specific  crimes 
with  a  truly  frightful  ingenuity.  We  could  wish  that 
he  had  made  more  use  of  the  mind  as  a  means  of 
torture,  and  thus  given  a  finer  moral  colouring  to 
the  picture.  This  defect  is  particularly  conspicuous 
in  his  portraiture  of  Satan,  who,  far  different  from 
that  spirit  whose  form  had  not  yet  lost  all  her  origi¬ 
nal  brightness,  is  depicted  in  the  gross  and  super¬ 
stitious  terrors  of  a  childish  imagination.  This  de¬ 
cidedly  bad  taste  must  be  imputed  to  the  rudeness 
of  the  age  in  which  Dante  lived.  The  progress  of 
refinement  is  shown  in  Tasso’s  subsequent  portrait 
of  this  same  personage,  who,  “towering  like  Calpe 
or  huge  Atlas,”  is  sustained  by  that  unconquerable 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  489 


temper  which  gives  life  to  the  jet  more  spiritualized 
conceptions  of  Milton.  The  faults  of  Dante  were 
those  of  his  age ;  but  in  his  elevated  conceptions,  in 
the  wild  and  desolating  gloom  which  he  has  thrown 
around  the  city  of  the  dead,  the  world  saw,  for  the 
first  time,  the  genius  of  modern  literature  fully  dis¬ 
played  ;  and  in  his  ripe  and  vigorous  versification,  it 
beheld  also,  for  the  first  time,  the  poetical  capacities 
of  a  modern  idiom.* 

The  Purgatory  relies  for  its  interest  on  no  strong 
emotion,  but  on  a  contemplative  moral  tone,  and  on 
such  luxuriant  descriptions  of  nature  as  bring  it  much 
nearer  to  the  style  of  English  poetry  than  any  other 
part  of  the  work.  It  is  on  the  Paradise,  however, 
that  Dante  has  lavished  all  the  stores  of  his  fancy. 
Yet  he  has  not  succeeded  in  his  attempt  to  exhibit 
there  a  regular  gradation  of  happiness ;  for  happi¬ 
ness  cannot,  like  pain,  be  measured  by  any  scale  of 
physical  sensations.  Neither  is  he  always  success¬ 
ful  in  the  notions  which  he  has  conveyed  of  the  oc¬ 
cupations  of  the  blessed.  There  was  no  source 
whence  he  -could  derive  this  knowledge.  The 
Scriptures  present  no  determinate  idea  of  such  oc¬ 
cupations,  and  the  mythology  of  the  ancients  had  so 
little  that  was  consolatory  in  it,  even  to  themselves, 
that  the  shade  of  Achilles  is  made  to  say,  in  the 
Odyssey,  that  “he  had  rather  be  the  slave  of  the 

*  Dante  anticipated  the  final  triumph  of  the  Italian  with  a  generous 
confidence,  not  shared  by  the  more  timid  scholars  of  his  own  or  the  suc¬ 
ceeding  age.  See  his  eloquent  apology  for  it  in  his  Convito,  especially 
p.  81,  82,  tom.  iv.,  ed.  1758.  See,  also,  Purg.,  can.  xxiv. 

ftQQ 


490  BIOGRAPHICAL  AM)  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

meanest  living  man  than  rule  as  a  sovereign  among 
the  dead.” 

Dante  wisely  placed  the  moral  sources  of  happi¬ 
ness  in  the  exercises  of  the  mind.  The  most  agree¬ 
able  of  these  to  himself,  though,  perhaps,  to  few  of 
his  readers,  was  metaphysical  polemics.  He  had, 
unfortunately,  in  his  youth  gained  a  prize  for  suc¬ 
cessful  disputation  at  the  schools,  and  in  every  page 
of  these  gladiatorial  exhibitions  we  discern  the  dis¬ 
ciple  of  Scotus  and  Aquinas.  His  materiel  is  made 
up  of  light,  music,  and  motion.  These  he  has  ar¬ 
ranged  in  every  possible  variety  of  combination.  We 
are  borne  along  from  one  magnificent^^  to  anoth¬ 
er,  and,  as  we  rise  in  the  scale  of  being,  the  motion 
of  the  celestial  dance  increases  in  velocity,  the  light 
shines  with  redoubled  brilliancy,  and  the  music  is  of 
a  more  ravishing  sweetness,  until  all  is  confounded 
in  the  intolerable  splendours  of  the  Deity. 

Dante  has  failed  in  his  attempt  to  personify  the 
Deity.  Who,  indeed,  has  not?  No  such  person¬ 
ification  can  be  effected  without  the  aid  of  illustra¬ 
tion  from  physical  objects,  and  how  degrading  are 
these  to  our  conceptions  of  Omnipotence  !  The  re¬ 
peated  failures  of  the  Italians  who  have  attempted 

* 

this  in  the  arts  of  design  are  still  more  conspicuous. 
Even  the  genius  of  Raphael  has  only  furnished  an¬ 
other  proof  of  the  impotence  of  his  art.  The  ad¬ 
vancement  of  taste  may  be  again  seen  in  Tasso’s 
representation  of  the  Supreme  Being  by  his  attri¬ 
butes,*  and,  with  similar  discretion,  Milton,  like  the 


*  Ger.  Lib.,  cix.,  s.  56. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  491 


Grecian  artist  who  drew  a  mantle  over  the  counte¬ 
nance  which  he  could  not  trust  himself  to  paint, 
whenever  he  has  introduced  the  Deity,  has  veiled  his 
glories  in  a  cloud. 

The  characters  and  conditions  of  Dante  and 
Milton  were  too  analogous  not  to  have  often  invited 
the  parallel.  Both  took  an  active  part  in  the  revo¬ 
lutions  of  their  age ;  both  lived  to  see  the  extinc¬ 
tion  of  their  own  hopes  and  the  ruin  of  their  party ; 
and  it  was  the  fate  of  both  to  compose  their  immor¬ 
tal  poems  in  poverty  and  disgrace.  These  circum¬ 
stances,  however,  produced  different  effects  on  their 
minds.  Milton,  in  solitude  and  darkness,  from  the 
cheerful  ways  of  men  cut  off,  was  obliged  to  seek 
inwardly  that  celestial  light,  which,  as  he  pathetical¬ 
ly  laments,  wTas  denied  to  him  from  without.  Hence 
his  poem  breathes  a  spirit  of  lofty  contemplation, 
which  is  never  disturbed  by  the  impurities  that  dis¬ 
figure  the  page  of  Dante.  The  latter  poet,  an  exile 
in  a  foreign  land,  condemned  to  eat  the  bread  of  de- 
pendance  from  the  hands  of  his  ancient  enemies, 
felt  the  iron  enter  more  deeply  into  his  soul,  and,  in 
the  spirit  of  his  age,  has  too  often  made  his  verses 
the  vehicle  of  his  vindictive  scorn.  Both  stood  forth 
the  sturdy  champions  of  freedom  in  every  form, 
above  all,  of  intellectual  freedom.  The  same  spirit 
which  animates  the  controversial  writings  of  Milton 
glows  with  yet  fiercer  heat  in  every  page  of  the  Di¬ 
vine  Comedy.  How  does  its  author  denounce  the 
abuses,  the  crying  abuses  of  the  Church,  its  hypoc¬ 
risies,  and  manifold  perversions  of  Scripture  !  How 


492  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

boldly  does  lie  declare  his  determination  to  proclaim 
the  truth,  that  he  may  live  in  the  memory  of  the  just 
hereafter  !  His  Ghibelline  connexions  were  indeed 
unfavourable  to  these  principles ;  but  these  connex¬ 
ions  were  the  result  of  necessity,  not  of  choice.  His 
hardy  spirit  had  been  nursed  in  the  last  ages  of  the 
Republic ;  and  it  may  be  truly  said  of  him  that  he 
became  a  Ghibelline  in  the  hope  of  again  becoming 
a  Florentine.  The  love  of  his  native  soil,  as  with 
most  exiles,  was  a  vital  principle  with  him.  How 
pathetically  does  he  recall  those  good  old  times 
when  the  sons  of  Florence  were  sure  to  find  a 
grave  within  her  walls!  Even  the  bitterness  of  his 
heart  against  her,  which  breaks  forth  in  the  very 
courts  of  heaven,  proves,  paradoxical  as  it  may  ap¬ 
pear,  the  tenacity  of  his  affection.  It  might  not  be 
easy  to  rouse  the  patriotism  of  a  modern  Italian  even 
into  this  symptom  of  vitality. 

The  genius  of  both  was  of  the  severest  kind.  For 
this  reason,  any  display  of  their  sensibility,  like  the 
light  breaking  through  a  dark  cloud,  affects  us  the 
more  by  contrast.  Such  are  the  sweet  pictures  of 
domestic  bliss  in  Paradise  Lost,  and  the  tender  tale 
of  Francesca  di  Rimini  in  the  Inferno.  Both  are 
sublime  in  the  highest  signification  of  the  term  ;  but 
Milton  is  an  ideal  poet,  and  delights  in  generaliza¬ 
tion,  while  Dante  is  the  most  literal  of  artists,  and 
paints  everything  in  detail.  He  refuses  no  imagery, 
however  mean,  that  can  illustrate  his  subject.  This 
is  too  notorious  to  require  exemplification.  He  is, 
moreover,  eminently  distinguished  by  the  power  of 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  493 


depicting  his  thought  by  a  single  vigorous  touch,  a 
manner  well  known  in  Italy  under  the  name  of 
Dantesque.  It  would  not  be  easy  for  such  a  verse 
as  the  following,  without  sacrifice  of  idiom,  to  be 
condensed  within  the  same  compass  in  our  language: 

“  Con  viso,  che  tacendo  dicea,  taci.” 

It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the  similarity  of 
tastes  in  these  great  minds,  as  exhibited  in  their 
pleasures  equally  with  their  serious  pursuits  ;  in  their 
exquisite  sensibility  to,  music ;  in  their  early  fond¬ 
ness  for  those  ancient  romances  which  they  have  so 
often  celebrated  both  in  prose  and  verse  ;  but  our 
limits  will  not  allow  us  to  pursue  the  subject  farther. 

Dante’s  epic  was  greeted  by  his  countrymen  in 
that  rude  age  with  the  general  enthusiasm  with 
which  they  have  ever  welcomed  the  works  of  genius. 
A  chair  was  instituted  at  Florence  for  the  exposition 
of  the  Divine  Comedy,  and  Boccaccio  was  the  first 
who  filled  it.  The  bust  of  its  author  was  crowned 
with  laurels ;  his  daughter  was  maintained  at  the 
public  expense  ;  and  the  fickle  Florentines  vainly 
solicited  from  Ravenna  the  ashes  of  their  poet,  whom 
they  had  so  bitterly  persecuted  when  living. 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  the  father  of  Italian  verse 
has  had  a  much  less  sensible  influence  on  the  taste 
of  his  countrymen  than  either  of  the  illustrious  tri¬ 
umvirate  of  the  fourteenth  century.  His  bold,  mas¬ 
culine  diction  and  his  concentrated  thought  were 
ill  suited  to  the  effeminacy  of  his  nation.  One  or 
two  clumsy  imitators  of  him  appeared  in  his  own 
age ;  and  in  ours  a  school  has  been  formed,  profess- 


494  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ing  to  be  modelled  on  the  severe  principles  of  the 
trecentisti ;  but  no  one  lias  yet  arisen  to  bend  the 
bow  of  Ulysses. 

Several  poets  wrote  in  the  T uscan  or  Italian  dia¬ 
lect  at  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century  with  tol¬ 
erable  purity  ;  but  their  amorous  effusions  would, 
probably,  like  those  in  the  Provencal,  have  rapidly 
passed  into  oblivion,  had  the  language  not  been  con¬ 
secrated  by  some  established  work  of  genius  like  the 
Divina  Commedia.  It  was  fortunate  that  its  author 
selected  a  subject  which  enabled  him  to  exhibit  the 
peculiar  tendency  of  Christianity  and  of  modern  in¬ 
stitutions,  and  to  demonstrate  their  immense  superi¬ 
ority  for  poetical  purposes  over  those  of  antiquity. 
It  opened  a  cheering  prospect  to  those  who  doubted 
the  capacities  of  a  modern  idiom  ;  and,  after  ages  of 
barbarism,  it  was  welcomed  as  the  sign  that  the  wa¬ 
ters  had  at  length  passed  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 

We  have  been  detained  long  upon  Dante,  though 
somewhat  contrary  to  our  intention  of  discussing 
classes  rather  than  individuals,  from  the  circumstance 
that  he  constitutes  in  himself,  if  we  may  so  say,  an 
entire  and  independent  class.  We  shall  now  pro¬ 
ceed,  as  concisely  as  possible,  to  touch  upon  some 
of  the  leading  peculiarities  in  the  lyrical  poetry  of 
the  Italians,  which  forms  with  them  a  very  important 
branch  of  letters. 

Lyrical  poetry  is  more  immediately  the  offspring 
of  imagination,  or  of  deep  feeling,  than  any  other 
kind  of  verse,  and  there  can  be  little  chance  of 
reaching  to  high  excellence  in  it  among  a  nation 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  495 


whose  character  is  defective  in  these  qualities.  The 
Italians  are,  undoubtedly,  the  most  prolific  in  this 
department,  as  the  French  are  the  least  so,  of  any 
people  in  Europe.  Nothing  can  be  more  mechan¬ 
ical  than  a  French  ode.  Reason,  wit,  pedantry, 
anything  but  inspiration,  find  their  way  into  it ;  and 
when  the  poet  is  in  extremity,  like  the  countryman 
in  the  fable,  he  calls  upon  the  pagan  gods  of  anti¬ 
quity  to  help  him  out.  The  best  ode  in  the  lan¬ 
guage,  according  to  La  Harpe,  is  that  of  J.  B.  Rous¬ 
seau  on  the  Count  de  Luc,  in  which  Phoebus,  or 
the  Fates,  Pluto,  Ceres,  or  Cybele,  figure  in  every 
stanza.  There  is  little  of  the  genuine  impetus  sacer 
in  all  this.  Lyrical  compositions,  the  expression  of 
natural  sensibility,  are  generally  most  abundant  in 
the  earlier  periods  of  a  nation’s  literature.  Such 
are  the  beautiful  collections  of  rural  minstrelsy  in 
our  own  tongue,  and  the  fine  old  ballads  and  songs 
in  the  Castilian ;  which  last  have  had  the  advan¬ 
tage  over  ours  of  being  imitated  down  to  a  late  day 
by  their  most  polished  writers.  But  Italy  is  the  only 
country  in  which  lyrical  composition,  from  the  first, 
instead  of  assuming  a  plebeian  garb,  has  received  all 
the  perfection  of  literary  finish,  and  which,  amid  ev¬ 
ery  vicissitude  of  taste,  has  been  cultivated  by  the 
most  polished  writers  of  the  age. 

One  cause  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  circum¬ 
stances  and  peculiar  character  of  the  father  of  Ital¬ 
ian  song.  The  life  of  Petrarch  furnishes  the  most 
brilliant  example  of  the  triumph  of  letters  in  a  coun¬ 
try  where  literary  celebrity  has  been  often  the  path 


496  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

to  political  consequence.  Princes  and  pontiffs,  cities 
and  universities,  vied  with  each  other  in  lavishing 
honours  upon  him.  His  tour  through  Italy  was  a 
sort  of  royal  progress,  the  inhabitants  of  the  cities 
thronging  out  to  meet  him,  and  providing  a  residence 
for  him  at  the  public  expense. 

The  two  most  enlightened  capitals  in  Europe 
contended  with  each  other  for  the  honour  of  his  po¬ 
etical  coronation.  His  influence  was  solicited  in 
the  principal  negotiations  of  the  Italian  States,  and 
he  enjoyed,  at  the  same  time,  the  confidence  of  the 
ferocious  Visconti  and  the  accomplished  Robert  of 
Naples.  His  immense  correspondence  connected 
him  with  the  principal  characters,  both  literary  and 
political,  throughout  Europe,  and  his  personal  biog¬ 
raphy  may  be  said  to  constitute  the  history  of  his  age. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  heart  of  Petrarch 
was  not  insensible  to  this  universal  homage,  and 
that  his  writings  occasionally  betray  the  vanity  and 
caprice  which  indicate  the  spoiled  child  of  fortune ; 
but,  with  this  moderate  alloy  of  humanity,  his  gen¬ 
eral  deportment  exhibits  a  purity  of  principle  and  a 
generous  elevation  of  sentiment  far  above  the  de¬ 
generate  politics  of  his  time.  He  was,  indeed,  the 
first  in  an  age  of  servility,  as  Dante  had  been  the 
last  in  an  age  of  freedom.  If  he  was  intimate  with 
some  of  the  petty  tyrants  of  Lombardy,  he  never 
prostituted  his  genius  to  the  vindication  of  their 
vices.  His  political  negotiations  were  conducted 
with  the  most  generous  and  extended  views  for  the 
weal  of  all  Italy.  How  independently  did  he  re- 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  497 


monstrate  with  Dandolo  on  his  war  with  the  Geno¬ 
ese  !  How  did  he  lift  his  voice  against  the  lawless 
banditti  who,  as  foreign  mercenaries,  ravaged  the 
fair  plains  of  Lombardy  !  How  boldly,  to  a  degree 
which  makes  it  difficult  to  account  for  his  personal 
safety,  did  he  thunder  his  invectives  against  the 
western  Babylon ! 

Even  his  failings  were  those  of  a  generous  nature. 
Dwelling  much  of  his  time  at  a  distance  from  his 
native  land,  he  considered  himself  rather  as  a  citizen 
of  Italy  than  of  any  particular  district  of  it.  He 
contemplated  her  with  the  eye  of  an  ancient  Ro¬ 
man,  and  wished  to  see  the  Imperial  City  once  more 
resume  her  supremacy  among  the  nations.  This 
led  him  for  a  moment  to  give  in  to  the  brilliant  illu¬ 
sion  of  liberty  which  Rienzi  awakened.  “  Who 
wrould  not,”  he  says,  appealing  to  the  Romans,  “rath¬ 
er  die  a  freeman  than  live  a  slave  V9*  But  when 
he  saw  that  he  had  been  deceived,  he  did  not  at¬ 
tempt  to  conceal  his  indignation,  and,  in  an  anima¬ 
ted  expostulation  with  the  tribune,  he  admonishes 
him  that  he  is  the  minister,  not  the  master  of  the 
Republic,  and  that  treachery  to  one’s  country  is  a 
crime  which  nothing  can  expiate.f 

As  he  wandered  amid  the  ruins  of  Rome,  he  con¬ 
templated  with  horror  the  violation  of  her  venerable 
edifices,  and  he  called  upon  the  pontiffs  to  return  to 
the  protection  of  their  “  widowed  metropolis.”  He 
was,  above  all,  solicitous  for  the  recovery  of  the  in- 

*  Epist.  ad  Nic.  Laurentii. — Opera,  p.  535. 
t  Famil.  Epist.,  lib.  vii.,  ep.  7,  p.  677,  Basil  ed. 

R  R  R 


498  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

tellectual  treasures  of  antiquity,  sparing  no  expense 
or  personal  fatigue  in  this  cause.  Many  of  the 
mouldering  manuscripts  he  restored  or  copied  with 
his  own  hand ;  and  his  beautiful  transcript  of  the 
epistles  of  Cicero  is  still  to  be  seen  in  the  Lauren- 
tian  Library  at  Florence. 

The  influence  of  his  example  is  visible  in  the  gen¬ 
erous  emulation  for  letters  kindled  throughout  Italy, 
and  in  the  purer  principles  of  taste  which  directed 
the  studies  of  the  schools.*  His  extensive  corre¬ 
spondence  diffused  to  the  remotest  corners  of  Eu¬ 
rope  the  sacred  flame  which  glowed  so  brightly  in 
his  own  bosom  ;  and  it  may  be  truly  said  that  he 
possessed  an  intellectual  empire  such  as  was  never 
before  enjoyed,  and  probably  never  can  be  again,  in 
the  comparatively  high  state  of  civilization  to  which 
the  world  is  arrived. 

It  is  not,  however,  the  antiquarian  researches  of 
Petrarch,  nor  those  elaborate  Latin  compositions, 
which  secured  to  him  the  laurel  wreath  of  poetry  in 
the  capitol,  that  have  kept  his  memory  still  green  in 
the  hearts  of  his  countrymen,  but  those  humbler  ef¬ 
fusions  in  his  own  language,  which  he  did  not  even 
condescend  to  mention  in  his  Letter  to  Posterity 
and  which  he  freely  gave  away  as  alms  to  ballad 
singers.  It  was  auspicious  for  Italian  literature  that 

*  In  Florence,  for  example,  with  a  population  which  Villani,  at  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  reckons  at  90,000  souls,  there  were 
from  eight  to  ten  thousand  children  who  received  a  liberal  education 
(Istor.  Fiorent.,  lib.  xi.,  cap.  93),  at  a  time  when  the  higher  classes  in 
the  rest  of  Europe  were  often  uninstructed  in  the  elementary  principles 
of  knowledge. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  499 


a  poet  like  Dante  should  have  been  followed  by  one 
of  so  flexible  a  character  as  Petrarch.  It  was  beauty 
succeeding  vigour.  The  language  to  which  Dante 
had  given  all  its  compactness  and  energy  was  far 
from  having  reached  the  full  harmony  of  numbers 
of  which  it  was  capable.  He  had,  moreover,  occa¬ 
sionally  distorted  it  into  such  Latinized  inversions, 
uncouth  phrases,  Hebraisms  and  Grecisms,  as  were 
foreign  to  the  genius  of  the  tongue.  These  blem¬ 
ishes,  of  so  little  account  in  Dante’s  extensive  poem, 
would  have  been  fatal  to  the  lyrical  pieces  of  Pe¬ 
trarch,  which,  like  miniatures,  from  their  minuteness, 
demand  the  highest  finish  of  detail.  The  pains 
which  the  latter  poet  bestowed  on  the  correction  of 
his  verses  are  almost  inconceivable.  Some  of  them 
would  appear,  from  the  memoranda  which  he  has 
left,  to  have  been  submitted  to  the  file  for  weeks, 
nay,  months,  before  he  dismissed  them.  Nor  was 
this  fastidiousness  of  taste  frivolous  in  one  who  was 
correcting,  not  for  himself,  but  for  posterity,  and  who, 
in  these  peculiar  graces  of  style,  was  creating  beau¬ 
tiful  and  permanent  forms  of  expression  for  his  coun¬ 
trymen.  His  acquaintance  with  the  modern  dialects, 
especially  the  Spanish  and  the  Provencal,  enriched 
his  vocabulary  with  many  exotic  beauties.  His  fine 
ear  disposed  him  to  refuse  all  but  the  most  harmo¬ 
nious  combinations  of  sound.  He  was  accustomed 
to  try  the  melody  of  his  verses  by  the  lute,  and,  like 
the  fabled  Theban,  built  up  his  elegant  fabric  by  the 
charms  of  music.  By  these  means  he  created  a 
style  scarcely  more  antiquated  than  that  of  the  pres- 


500  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ent  clay,  and  which  can  hardly  be  said  to  contain  an 
obsolete  phrase;  an  assertion  not  to  be  ventured  re¬ 
specting  any  author  in  our  language  before  the  days 
of  Queen  Anne.  Indeed,  even  a  foreigner  can  hard¬ 
ly  open  a  page  of  Petrarch  without  being  struck 
writh  the  precocity  of  a  language  which,  like  the 
vegetation  of  an  arctic  summer,  seems  to  have  ripen¬ 
ed  into  full  maturity  at  once.  There  is  nothing 
analogous  to  this  in  any  other  tongue  with  which 
we  are  acquainted,  unless  it  be  the  Greek,  which,  in 
the  poems  of  Homer,  appears  to  have  attained  its  last 
perfection;  a  circumstance  which  has  led  Cicero  to 
remark,  in  his  Brutus,  that  “there  must,  doubtless, 
have  existed  poets  antecedent  to  Homer,  since  in¬ 
vention  and  perfection  can  hardly  go  together.” 

The  mass  of  Petrarch’s  Italian  poetry  is,  as  is 
well  known,  of  an  amorous  complexion.  He  was 
naturally  of  a  melancholy  temperament,  and  his  un¬ 
fortunate  passion  became  with  him  the  animating 
principle  of  being.  His  compositions  in  the  Latin, 
as  well  as  those  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  his  voluminous 
correspondence,  his  private  memoranda  or  confes¬ 
sions,  which,  from  their  nature,  seem  never  to  have 
been  destined  for  the  public  eye,  all  exhibit  this  pas¬ 
sion  in  one  shape  or  another.  Yet  there  have  been 
those  who  have  affected  to  doubt  even  the  existence 
of  such  a  personage  as  Laura. 

His  Sonnets  and  Canzoni,  chronologically  arran¬ 
ged,  exhibit  pretty  fairly  the  progress  of  his  life  and 
love,  and,  as  such,  have  been  judiciously  used  by  the 
Abbe  de  Sade.  The  most  trivial  event  seems  to 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  501 


have  stirred  the  poetic  feeling  within  him.  We 
find  no  less  than  four  sonnets  indited  to  his  mis¬ 
tress’s  gloves,  and  three  to  her  eyes  ;  which  last, 
styled,  par  excellence,  the  “  Three  Sisters,”  are  in  the 
greatest  repute  with  his  countrymen  ;  a  judgment  on 
which  most  English  critics  would  be  at  issue  with 
them.  Notwithstanding  the  vicious  affectation  of 
style  and  the  mysticism  which  occasionally  obscure 
these  and  other  pieces  of  Petrarch,  his  general  tone 
exhibits  a  moral  dignity  unknown  to  the  sordid  ap¬ 
petites  of  the  ancients,  and  an  earnestness  of  passion 
rarely  reflected  from  the  cold  glitter  of  the  Proven¬ 
cal.  But  it  is  in  the  verses  written  after  the  death 
of  his  mistress  that  he  confesses  the  inspiration  of 
Christianity,  in  the  deep  moral  colouring  which  he 
has  given  to  his  descriptions  of  nature,  and  in  those 
visions  of  immortal  happiness  which  he  contrasts 
with  the  sad  realities  of  the  present  life.  He  dwells 
rather  on  the  melancholy  pleasures  of  retrospection 
than  those  of  hope;  unlike  most  of  the  poets  of 
Italy,  whose  warm,  sunny  skies  seem  to  have  scat¬ 
tered  the  gloom  which  hangs  over  the  poetry  of  the 
North.  In  this  and  some  other  peculiarities,  Dante 
and  Petrarch  appear  to  have  borne  greater  resem¬ 
blance  to  the  English  than  to  their  own  nation. 

Petrarch’s  career,  however  brilliant,  may  serve 
rather  as  a  warning  than  as  a  model.  The  queru¬ 
lous  tone  of  some  of  his  later  writings,  the  shade  of 
real  sorrow,  which  seems  to  come  across  even  his 
brightest  moments,  show  the  utter  inefficacy  of  ge¬ 
nius  and  of  worldly  glory  to  procure  to  their  pos- 


502  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

sessor  a  substantial  happiness.  It  is  melancholy  to 
witness  the  aberrations  of  mind  into  which  so  fine 
a  genius  was  led  by  unfortunate  passion.  The  ap¬ 
parition  of  Laura  haunted  him  by  night  as  well  as 
by  day,  in  society  and  in  solitude.  He  sought  to 
divert  his  mind  by  travelling,  by  political  or  literary 
occupation,  by  reason  and  religion,  but  in  vain. 
His  letters  and  private  confessions  show,  no  less  than 
his  poetry,  how  incessantly  his  imagination  was  tor¬ 
tured  by  doubts,  hopes,  fears,  melancholy  presages, 
regrets,  and  despair.  She  triumphed  over  the  decay 
of  her  personal  charms,  and  even  over  the  grave,  for 
it  was  a  being  of  the  mind  he  worshipped.  There 
is  something  affecting  in  seeing  such  a  mind  as  Pe¬ 
trarch’s  feeding  on  this  unrequited  passion,  and  more 
than  twenty  years  after  his  mistress’s  death,  and  when 
on  the  verge  of  the  grave  himself,  depicting  her  in 
all  the  bright  colouring  of  youthful  fancy,  and  fol¬ 
lowing  her  in  anticipation  to  that  Heaven  where  he 
hopes  soon  to  be  united  to  her. 

Petrarch’s  example,  even  in  his  own  day,  was 
widely  infectious.  He  sarcastically  complains  of  the 
quantities  of  verses  sent  to  him  for  correction,  from 
the  farthest  north,  from  Germany  and  the  British 
Isles,  then  the  Ultima  Thule  of  civilization.  The 
pedants  of  the  succeeding  age,  it  is  true,  wasted  their 
efforts  in  hopeless  experiments  upon  the  ancient  lan¬ 
guages,  whose  chilling  influence  seems  to  have  en¬ 
tirely  closed  the  hand  of  the  native  minstrel ;  and  it 
was  not  until  the  time  of  Lorenzo  de’  Medici,  whose 
correct  taste  led  him  to  prefer  the  flexible  movements 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  503 


of  a  living  tongue,  that  the  sweet  tones  of  the  Italian 
lyre  were  again  awakened.  The  excitement,  how¬ 
ever,  soon  became  general,  affecting  all  ranks,  from 
the  purpled  prelate  down  to  the  most  humble  artisan; 
and  a  collection  of  the  Beauties  (as  we  should  call 
them)  of  this  latter  description  of  worthies  has  been 
gathered  into  a  respectable  volume,  which  Baretti 
assures  us,  with  a  good-natured  criticism,  may  be 
compared  with  the  verses  of  Petrarch.  In  all  these 
the  burden  of  the  song  is  love.  Those  who  did  not 
feel  could  at  least  affect  the  tender  passion.  Lo¬ 
renzo  de’  Medici  pitched  upon  a  mistress  as  delib¬ 
erately  as  Don  Quixote  did  on  his  Dulcinea  ;  and 
Tasso  sighed  away  his  soul  to  a  nymph  so  shadowy 
as  sorely  to  have  puzzled  his  commentators  till  the 
time  of  Serassi. 

It  would  he  unavailing  to  attempt  to  characterize 
those  who  have  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  the 
Laureate,  or  we  might  dwell  on  the  romantic  sweet¬ 
ness  of  Lorenzo  de’  Medici,  the  purity  of  Vittoria 
Colonna,  the  elaborate  polish  of  Bembo,  the  vivaci¬ 
ty  of  Marini,  and  the  eloquence,  the  Platonic  rever¬ 
ies,  and  rich  colouring  of  Tasso,  whose  beauties  and 
whose  defects  so  nearly  resemble  those  of  his  great 
original  in  this  department.  But  we  have  no  leisure 
to  go  minutely  into  the  shades  of  difference  between 
the  imitators  of  Petrarch.  One  may  regret  that, 
amid  their  clouds  of  amorous  incense,  he  can  so 
rarely  discern  the  religious  or  patriotic  enthusiasm 
which  animates  the  similar  compositions  of  the 
Spanish  poets,  and  which  forms  the  noblest  basis  of 


504  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

lyrical  poetry  at  all  times.  The  wrongs  of  Italy, 
the  common  battle-field  of  the  banditti  of  Europe 
for  nearly  a  century,  and  at  the  very  time  when  hei 
poetic  vein  flowed  most  freely,  might  well  have  rous¬ 
ed  the  indignation  of  her  children.  The  compara¬ 
tively  few  specimens  on  this  theme  from  Petrarch 
to  Filicaja  are  justly  regarded  as  the  happiest  efforts 
of  the  Italian  lyre. 

The  seventeenth  century,  so  unfortunate  for  the 
national  literature  in  all  other  respects,  was  marked 
by  a  bolder  deviation  from  the  eternal  track  of  the 
Petrarchists  ;  a  reform,  indeed,  which  may  be  traced 
back  to  Casa.  Among  these  innovators,  Chiabrera, 
whom  Tiraboschi  styles  both  Anacreon  and  Pindar, 
but  who  may  be  content  with  the  former  of  these 
appellations,  and  Filicaja,  who  has  found  in  the 
Christian  faith  sources  of  a  sublimity  that  Pindar 
could  never  reach,  are  the  most  conspicuous.  Their 
salutary  example  has  not  been  lost  on  the  modem 
Italian  writers. 

Some  of  the  ancients  have  made  a  distinct  divis¬ 
ion  of  lyrical  poetry,  under  the  title  of  melicus  *  If, 
as  it  would  seem,  they  mean  something  of  a  more 
calm  and  uniform  tenour  than  the  impetuous  dithy- 
rambic  flow ;  something  in  which  symmetry  of  form 
and  melody  of  versification  are  chiefly  considered ; 
in  which,  in  fine,  the  effeminate  beauties  of  senti¬ 
ment  are  preferred  to  the  more  hardy  conceptions 
of  fancy,  the  term  may  be  significant  of  the  great 
mass  of  Italian  lyrics.  But  we  fear  that  we  have 

*  Ausonius,  Edyt.  IV.,  54. — Cicero,  De  Opt.  Gen.  Oratorum,  I. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  505 


insisted  too  far  on  their  defects.  Our  criticism  has 
been  formed  rather  on  the  average  than  on  the  high¬ 
est  specimens  of  the  art.  In  this  way  the  very  lux¬ 
uriance  of  the  soil  is  a  disadvantage  to  it.  The 
sins  of  exuberance,  however,  are  much  more  corri¬ 
gible  than  those  of  sterility,  which  fall  upon  this  de¬ 
partment  of  poetry  in  almost  every  other  nation. 
We  must  remember,  too,  that  no  people  has  exhib¬ 
ited  the  passion  of  love  under  such  a  variety  of 
beautiful  aspects,  and  that,  after  all,  although  the 
amount  be  comparatively  small,  no  other  modern  na¬ 
tion  can  probably  produce  so  many  examples  of  the 
very  highest  lyrical  inspiration. 

But  it  is  time  that  we  should  return  to  the  Ro¬ 
mantic  Epics,  the  most  important,  and,  perhaps,  the 
most  prolific  branch  of  the  ornamental  literature  of 
the  Italians.  They  have  been  distributed  into  a 
great  variety  of  classes  by  their  own  critics.  We 
shall  confine  our  remarks  to  some  of  their  most  em¬ 
inent  models,  without  regard  to  their  classification. 

Those  who  expect  to  find  in  these  poems  the 
same  temper  which  animates  the  old  English  tales 
of  chivalry,  will  be  disappointed.  A  much  more 
correct  notion  of  their  manner  may  be  formed  from 
Mr.  Ellis’s  Bernesque  (if  we  may  be  allowed  a  sig¬ 
nificant  term)  recapitulations  of  these  latter.  In 
short,  they  are  the  marvels  of  an  heroic  age,  told 
with  the  fine  incredulous  air  of  a  polite  one.  It  is 
this  contrast  of  the  dignity  of  the  matter  with  the  fa¬ 
miliarity  of  the  manner  of  narration  that  has  occa¬ 
sioned  among  their  countrymen  so  many  animated 

S  s  s 


506  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

disputes  respecting  the  serious  or  satirical  intentions 
of  Pulci,  Ariosto,  Berni,  and  the  rest. 

The  Italians,  although  they  have  brought  tales  of 
chivalry  to  higher  perfection  {han  any  other  people 
in  the  world,  are,  of  all  others,  in  their  character 
the  most  anti-chivalrous.  Their  early  Republican 
institutions,  which  brought  all  classes  nearly  to  the 
same  level,  were  obviously  unfavourable  to  the  spirit 
of  chivalry.  Commerce  became  the  road  to  prefer¬ 
ment.  Wealth  was  their  pedigree,  and  their  patent 
of  nobility.  The  magnificent  Medici  were  bankers 
and  merchants  ;  and  the  ancient  aristocracy  of  Ven¬ 
ice  employed  their  capital  in  traffic  until  an  advan¬ 
ced  period  of  the  Republic.  Courage,  so  essential 
in  the  character  of  a  knight,  was  of  little  account  in 
the  busy  communities  of  Italy.  Like  Carthage  of 
old,  they  trusted  their  defence  to  mercenaries,  first 
foreign,  and  afterward  native,  but  who  in  every  in¬ 
stance  fought  for  hire,  not  honour,  selling  themselves, 
and  often  their  employers,  to  the  highest  bidder;  and 
who,  cased  in  impenetrable  mail,  fought  with  so  lit¬ 
tle  personal  hazard,  that  Machiavelli  has  related 
more  than  one  infamous  encounter  in  which  the 
only  lives  lost  were  from  suffocation  under  their 
ponderous  panoplies.  So  low  had  the  military  rep¬ 
utation  of  the  Italians  declined,  that  in  the  war  of 
the  Neapolitan  succession  in  1502,  it  was  thought 
necessary  for  thirteen  of  their  body  to  vindicate  the 
national  character  from  the  imputation  of  coward¬ 
ice  by  solemn  defiance  and  battle  against  an  equal 
number  of  French  knights,  in  presence  of  the  hos¬ 
tile  armies. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  507 

Hence  other  arts  came  to  be  studied  than  that  ot 
war — the  arts  of  diplomacy  and  intrigue.  Hence 
statesmen  were  formed,  but  not  soldiers.  The  cam¬ 
paign  was  fought  in  the  cabinet  instead  of  the  field. 
Every  spring  of  cunning  and  corruption  was  es¬ 
sayed,  and  an  insidious  policy  came  into  vogue,  in 
which,  as  the  philosopher,  who  has  digested  its  prin¬ 
ciples  into  a  system,  informs  us,  “  the  failure,  not  the 
atrocity  of  a  deed,  was  considered  disgraceful.”* 
The  law  of  honour  became  different  with  the  Ital¬ 
ians  from  what  it  was  with  other  nations.  Conspir¬ 
acy  was  preferred  to  open  defiance,  and  assassina¬ 
tion  was  a  legitimate  method  of  revenge.  The  State 
of  Venice  condescended  to  employ  a  secret  agent 
against  the  life  of  Francis  Sforza ;  and  the  noblest 
escutcheons  in  Italy,  those  of  Este  and  the  Medici, 
were  stained  with  the  crimes  of  fratricide  and  incest 

In  this  general  moral  turpitude,  the  literature  of 
Italy  was  rapidly  rising  to  its  highest  perfection. 
There  was  scarcely  a  petty  state  which,  in  the  four 
teenth,  fifteenth,  and  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  cen 
turies,  had  not  made  brilliant  advances  in  elegant 
prose,  poetry,  or  the  arts  of  design.  Intellectual  cul¬ 
ture  was  widely  diffused,  and  men  of  the  highest 
rank  devoted  themselves  with  eagerness  to  the  oc¬ 
cupation  of  letters ;  this,  too,  at  a  time  when  learn¬ 
ing  in  other  countries  wras  banished  to  colleges  and 
cloisters ;  when  books  were  not  always  essential  in 
the  education  of  a  gentleman.  Du  Guesclin,  the 
flower  of  French  chivalry  in  the  fourteenth  century. 


*  Machiavelli,  Istor.  Fior.,  1.  vi. 


508  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

could  not  read  a  word.  Castiglione,  in  his  Corte- 
giano,  has  given  us  so  pleasing  a  picture  of  the  rec¬ 
reations  of  the  little  court  of  Urbino,  one  of  the 
many  into  which  Italy  was  distributed  at  the  close 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  as  to  suggest  an  exalted  no¬ 
tion  of  its  taste  and  cultivated  habits ;  and  Guicci¬ 
ardini  has  described,  with  all  the  eloquence  of  re¬ 
gret,  the  flourishing  condition  of  his  country  at  the 
same  period,  ere  the  storm  had  descended  on  her 
beautiful  valleys.  In  all  this  we  see  the  character¬ 
istics  of  a  highly  polished  state  of  society,  but  none 
of  the  hardy  virtues  of  chivalry. 

It  was  precisely  in  such  a  state  of  society,  light, 
lively,  and  licentious,  possessed  of  a  high  relish  for 
the  beauties  of  imagination,  but  without  moral  dig¬ 
nity,  or  even  a  just  moral  sense,  that  the  Muse  of 
romance  first  appeared  in  Italy ;  and  it  was  not  to 
be  expected  that  she  would  retain  there  her  majestic 
Castilian  port,  or  the  frank,  cordial  bearing  which 
endeared  her  to  our  Norman  ancestors.  In  fact,  the 
Italian  fancy  seems  to  have  caught  rather  the  gay, 
gossiping  temper  of  the  fabliaux.  The  most  famil¬ 
iar  and  grotesque  adventures  are  mixed  in  with  the 
most  serious,  and  even  these  last  are  related  in  a 
fine  tone  of  ironical  pleasantry.  Magnificent  inven¬ 
tions  are  recommended  by  agreeable  illusions  of 
style  ;  but  they  not  unfrequently  furnish  a  flimsy 
drapery  for  impurity  of  sentiment.  The  high  devo¬ 
tion  and  general  moral  aspect  of  our  English  Faerie 
Queene  are  not  characteristic,  with  a  few  eminent 
exceptions,  of  Italian  tales  of  chivalry,  in  which  we 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS  509 


too  often  find  the  best  interests  of  our  nature  expo¬ 
sed  to  all  the  license  of  frivolous  banter.  Pulci,  who 
has  furnished  an  apology  for  the  infamous  Pucelle,* 
and  Fortiguerra,  with  their  school  of  imitators,  may 
afford  abundant  examples  to  the  curious  in  these 
matters. 

The  first  successful  models  of  the  romantic  epic 
were  exhibited  at  the  table  of  Lorenzo  de?  Medici ; 
that  remarkable  man,  who,  as  Machiavelli  says  of 
him,  “  seemed  to  unite  in  his  person  two  distinct  na¬ 
tures” — who  could  pass  from  the  severe  duties  of  the 
council-chamber  to  mingle  in  the  dances  of  the  peo¬ 
ple,  and  from  the  abstractions  of  his  favourite  phi¬ 
losophy  to  the  broad  merriment  of  a  convivial  table. 
Amid  all  the  elegance  of  the  Medici,  however — of 
Lorenzo  and  Leo  X. — there  seems  to  have  been  a 
lurking  appetite  for  vulgar  pleasure,  at  least  if  we 
may  judge  from  the  coarse,  satirical  repartee  which 
Franco  and  his  friend  Pulci  poured  out  upon  one 
another  for  the  entertainment  of  their  patron,  and 
the  still  more  bald  buffoonery  which  enlightened  the 
palace  of  his  pontifical  son. 

The  Stanze  of  Politian,  however,  exhibit  no  trace 
of  this  obliquity  of  taste.  This  fragment  of  an  epic, 
almost  too  brief  for  criticism,  like  a  prelude  to  some 
beautiful  air,  seems  to  have  opened  the  way  to  those 
delightful  creations  of  the  Muse  which  so  rapidly 
followed,  and  to  have  contained  within  itself  their 

*  See  Voltaire’s  preface  to  it.  Chapelain’s  prosy  poem  on  the  same 
subject,  La  Pucelle  d’Orleans,  lives  now  only  in  the  satire  of  Boileau. 
It  was  the  hard  fate  of  the  Heroine  of  Orleans  to  be  canonized  in  a  dull 
epic,  and  damned  in  a  witty  one. 


510  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

various  elements  of  beauty  :  the  invention  of  Boiar- 
do,  the  picturesque  narrative  of  Ariosto,  and  Tasso’s 
flush  of  colour.  Every  stanza  is  music  to  the  ear, 
and  affords  a  distinct  picture  to  the  eye.  Unfortu¬ 
nately,  Politian  was  soon  seduced  by  the  fashion  of 
the  age  from  the  culture  of  his  native  tongue.  Prob¬ 
ably  no  Italian  poet  of  equal  promise  was  ever  sacri¬ 
ficed  to  the  manes  of  antiquity.  His  voluminous 
Latin  labours  are  now  forgotten,  and  this  fragment 
of  an  epic  affords  almost  the  only  point  from  which 
he  is  still  contemplated  by  posterity. 

Pulci’s  Morgante  is  the  first  thorough-bred  ro¬ 
mance  of  chivalry  which  the  Italians  have  received 
as  text  of  the  tongue.  It  is  fashioned  much  more 
literally  than  any  of  its  successors,  on  Turpin’s 
Chronicle,  that  gross  medley  of  fact  and  fable,  too 
barren  for  romance,  too  false  for  history ;  the  dung¬ 
hill  from  which  have  shot  up,  nevertheless,  the  bright 
flowers  of  French  and  Italian  fiction.  In  like  man¬ 
ner  as  in  this,  religion,  not  love,  is  the  principle  of 
Pulci’s  action.  The  theological  talk  of  his  devils 
may  remind  one  of  the  prosy  conference  of  Roland 
and  Ferracute;  and,  strange  to  say,  he  is  the  only 
one  of  the  eminent  Italian  poets  who  has  adopted 
from  the  chronicle  the  celebrated  rout  at  Ronces- 
valles.  In  his  concluding  cantos,  which  those  who 
have  censured  him  as  a  purely  satirical  or  burlesque 
poet  can  have  hardly  reached,  Pidci,  throwing  off 
the  vulgar  trammels  which  seem  to  have  oppressed 
his  genius,  rises  into  the  noblest  conceptions  of  po¬ 
etry,  and  describes  the  tragical  catastrophe  with  all 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  511 


the  eloquence  of  pathos  and  moral  grandeur.  Had 
he  written  often  thus,  the  Morgante  would  now  be 
resorted  to  by  native  purists,  not  merely  as  the  well 
of  Tuscan  undefiled,  but  as  the  genuine  fount  of  epic 
inspiration. 

From  the  rank  and  military  profession  of  Boiardo, 
it  might  be  expected  that  his  poem,  the  Orlando  In- 
namorato,  would  display  more  of  the  lofty  tone  of 
chivalry  than  is  usual  with  his  countrymen  ;  but, 
with  some  exceptions,  the  portrait  of  Ruggiero,  for 
example,  it  will  be  difficult  to  discern  this.  He, 
however,  excels  them  all  in  a  certain  force  of  char¬ 
acterizing,  and  in  an  inexhaustible  fertility  of  inven¬ 
tion.  His  dramatis  persona,  continued  by  Ariosto, 
might  afford  an  excellent  subject  for  a  parallel,  which 
we  have  not  room  to  discuss.  In  general,  he  may 
be  said  to  sculpture  where  Ariosto  paints.  His  he¬ 
roes  assume  a  fiercer  and  more  indomitable  aspect, 
and  his  Amazonian  females  a  more  glaring  and  less 
fastidious  coquetry.  But  it  is  in  the  regions  of  pure 
fancy  that  his  muse  delights  to  sport,  where,  instead 
of  the  cold  conceptions  of  a  Northern  brain,  which 
make  up  the  machinery  of  Pulci,  we  are  introduced 
to  the  delicate  fairies  of  the  East,  to  gardens  bloom¬ 
ing  in  the  midst  of  the  desert,  to  palaces  of  crystal, 
winged  steeds,  enchanted  armour,  and  all  the  gay 
fabric  of  Oriental  mythology.  It  has  been  the  sin¬ 
gular  fate  of  Boiardo  to  have  had  his  story  continued 
and  excelled  by  one  poet,  and  his  style  reformed  by 
another,  until  his  own  original  work,  and  even  his 
name,  have  passed  into  comparative  oblivion.  Ber- 


512  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ni’s  rifacimento  is  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  in¬ 
stance  of  the  triumph  of  style  on  record.  Every 
stanza  reflects  the  sense  of  the  original ;  yet  such  is 
the  fascination  of  his  diction,  compared  with  the 
provincial  barbarism  of  his  predecessor,  as  to  remind 
one  of  those  mutations  in  romance  where  some  old 
and  withered  hag  is  suddenly  transformed  into  a 
blooming  fairy.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  this 
could  have  succeeded  so  completely  in  a  language 
where  the  beauties  of  style  are  less  appreciated. 
Dry  den  has  made  a  similar  attempt  in  the  Canter¬ 
bury  Tales;  but  who  does  not  prefer  the  racy,  ro¬ 
mantic  sweetness  of  Chaucer  l 

The  Orlando  Furioso,  from  its  superior  literary 
execution,  as  well  as  from  its  union  of  all  the  pecu¬ 
liarities  of  Italian  tales  of  chivalry,  may  be  taken  as 
the  representative  of  the  whole  species.  Some  of 
the  national  critics  have  condemned,  and  some  have 
endeavoured  to  justify  these  peculiarities  of  the  ro¬ 
mantic  epopee ;  its  complicated  narrative  and  pro¬ 
voking  interruptions,  its  transitions  from  the  gravest 
to  the  most  familiar  topics,  its  lawless  extravagance 
of  fiction,  and  other  deviations  from  the  statutes  of 
antiquity — but  very  few  have  attempted  to  explain 
them  on  just  and  philosophical  principles.  The  ro¬ 
mantic  eccentricities  of  the  Italian  poets  are  not  to 
be  imputed  either  to  inattention  or  ignorance.  Most 
of  them  were  accomplished  scholars,  and  went  to 
their  work  with  all  the  forecast  of  consummate  art¬ 
ists.  Boiardo  was  so  well  versed  in  the  ancient 
tongues  as  to  have  made  accurate  translations  of 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  513 


Herodotus  and  Apuleius.  Ariosto  was  such  an  ele¬ 
gant  Latinist,  that  even  the  classic  Bemho  did  not 
disdain  to  learn  from  him  the  mysteries  of  Horace. 
He  consulted  his  friends  over  and  over  again  on  the 
disposition  of  his  fable,  assigning  to  them  the  most 
sufficient  reasons  for  its  complicated  texture.  In 
like  manner,  Tasso  shows,  in  his  Poetical  Discour¬ 
ses,  how  deeply  he  had  revolved  the  principles  of 
his  art,  and  his  Letters  prove  his  dexterity  in  the 
application  of  these  principles  to  his  own  composi¬ 
tions.  These  illustrious  minds  understood  well  the 
difference  between  copying  the  ancients  and  copy¬ 
ing  nature.  They  knew  that  to  write  by  the  rules 
of  the  former  is  not  to  write  like  them ;  that  the  ge¬ 
nius  of  our  institutions  requires  new  and  peculiar 
forms  of  expression ;  that  nothing  is  more  fantastic 
than  a  modern  antique  ;  and  they  wisely  left  the 
attempt  and  the  failure  to  such  spiritless  pedants  as 
Trissino. 

The  difference  subsisting  between  the  ancients 
and  moderns,  in  the  constitution  of  society,  amply 
justifies  the  different  principles  on  which  they  have 
proceeded  in  their  works  of  imagination.  Religion, 
love,  honour — what  different  ideas  are  conveyed  by 
these  terms  in  these  different  periods  of  history  !* 
The  love  of  country  was  the  pervading  feeling 

How  feeble,  as  an  operative  principle,  must  religion  have  been  among 
a  people  who  openly  avowed  it  to  be  the  creation  of  their  own  poets. 
“Homer  and  Hesiod,”  says  Herodotus,  “created  the  theogony  of  the 
Greeks,  assigning  to  the  gods  their  various  titles,  characters,  and  forms.” 
— Herod.,  ii.,  63.  Religion,  it  is  well  known,  was  a  principal  basis  of 
modern  chivalry. 


T  T  T 


514  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

which,  in  the  ancient  Greek  or  Roman,  seems  to 
have  absorbed  every  other,  and  to  have  obliterated, 
as  it  were,  the  moral  idiosyncrasy  of  the  individual, 
while  with  the  moderns  it  is  the  individual  who 
stands  forward  in  principal  relief.  His  loves,  his 
private  feuds  and  personal  adventures,  form  the  ob¬ 
ject  almost  of  exclusive  attention.  Hence,  in  the 
classical  fable,  strict  unity  of  action  and  concentra¬ 
tion  of  interest  are  demanded,  while  in  the  roman¬ 
tic,  the  object  is  best  attained  by  variety  of  action 
and  diversity  of  interest,  and  the  threads  of  personal 
adventure  separately  conducted,  and  perpetually  in¬ 
tersecting  each  other,  make  up  the  complicated  tex¬ 
ture  of  the  fable.  Hence  it  becomes  so  exceedingly 
difficult  to  discern  who  is  the  real  hero,  and  what 
the  main  action,  in  such  poems  as  the  Innamorato 
and  Furioso.  Hence,  too,  the  episode,  the  accident, 
if  we  may  so  say,  of  the  classical  epic,  becomes  the 
essence  of  the  romantic.  On  this  explication,  Tas¬ 
so’s  delightful  excursions,  his  adventures  of  Sophro- 
nia  and  Erminia,  so  often  condemned  as  excrescen¬ 
ces,  may  be  admired  as  perfectly  legitimate  beauties. 

The  poems  of  Homer  were  intended  as  historical 
compositions.  They  were  revered  and  quoted  as 
such  by  the  most  circumspect  of  the  national  wri¬ 
ters,  as  Thucydides  and  Strabo,  for  example.  The 
romantic  poets,  on  the  other  hand,  seem  to  have  in¬ 
tended  nothing  beyond  a  mere  delassement  of  the 
imagination.  The  old  Norman  epics,  it  is  true,  ex¬ 
hibit  a  wonderful  coincidence  in  their  delineations 
of  manners  with  the  contemporary  chronicles.  But 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  515 


this  is  not  the  spirit  of  Italian  romance,  which  has 
rarely  had  any  higher  ostensible  aim  than  that  of 
pure  amusement. 

“  Scritta  cosi  come  la  penna  getta, 

Per  fuggir  l’ozio,  e  non  per  cercar  gloria,” 

and  which  was  right,  therefore,  in  seeking  its  mate¬ 
rials  in  the  wildest  extravagances  of  fiction,  the  mag- 
nanime  menzogne  of  chivalry,  and  the  brilliant  chi¬ 
meras  of  the  East. 

The  immortal  epics  of  Ariosto  and  Tasso  are  too 
generally  known  to  require  from  us  any  particular 
analysis.  Some  light,  however,  may  be  reflected  on 
these  poets  from  a  contrast  of  their  peculiarities. 
The  period  in  which  Tasso  wrote  was  one  of  high 
religious  fermentation.  The  Turks,  who  had  so 
long  overawed  Europe,  had  recently  been  discom¬ 
fited  in  the  memorable  sea-fight  of  Lepanto,  and  the 
kindling  enthusiasm  of  the  nations  seemed  to  threat¬ 
en  for  a  moment  to  revive  the  follies  of  the  Crusades. 
Tasso’s  character  was  of  a  kind  to  be  peculiarly 
sensible  to  these  influences.  His  soul  was  penetra¬ 
ted  with  religious  fervour,  to  which,  as  Serassi  has 
shown,  more  than  to  any  cause  of  mysterious  pas¬ 
sion,  are  to  be  imputed  his  occasional  mental  aber¬ 
rations.  He  was  distinguished,  moreover,  by  his 
chivalrous  personal  valour,  put  to  the  test  in  more 
than  one  hazardous  encounter;  and  he  was  reckon¬ 
ed  the  most  expert  swordsman  of  his  time.  Tasso’s 
peculiarities  of  character  were  singularly  suited  to 
his  subject.  He  has  availed  himself  of  this  to  the 
full,  in  exhibiting  the  resources  and  triumphs  of 


516  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

Christian  chivalry.  The  intellectual  rather  than  the 
physical  attributes  of  his  supernatural  agents,  his 
solemn  meditations  on  the  fragility  of  earthly  glory, 
and  the  noble  ardour  with  which  he  leads  us  to  as¬ 
pire  after  an  imperishable  crown,  give  to  his  epic  a 
moral  grandeur  which  no  preceding  poet  had  ever 
reached.  It  has  been  objected  to  him,  however,  that 
he  preferred  the  intervention  of  subordinate  agents 
to  that  of  the  Deity;  but  the  God  of  the  Christians 
cannot  be  introduced  like  those  of  pagan  mythology. 
They  espoused  the  opposite  sides  of  the  contest ; 
but,  wherever  He  appears,  the  balance  is  no  longer 
suspended,  and  the  poetical  interest  is  consequently 
destroyed. 

“  Victrix  causa  Diis  placuit,  sed  victa  Catoni.” 

This  might  be  sublime  with  the  ancients,  but  would 
be  blasphemous  and  absurd  with  the  moderns,  and 
Tasso  judged  wisely  in  availing  himself  of  inferior 
and  intermediate  ministers. 

Ariosto’s  various  subject, 

“  Le  donne,  i  cavalier’,  l’arme,  gli  amori,” 

was  equally  well  suited  with  Tasso’s  to  his  own  va¬ 
rious  and  flexible  genius.  It  did  not,  indeed,  admit 
of  the  same  moral  elevation,  in  which  he  was  him¬ 
self  perhaps  deficient,  but  it  embraced  within  its 
range  every  variety  of  human  passion  and  portrait¬ 
ure.  Tasso  was  of  a  solitary,  as  Ariosto  was  of  a 
social  temper.  He  had  no  acquaintance  with  affairs, 
and  Gravina  accuses  him  of  drawing  his  knowledge 
from  books  instead  of  men.  He  turned  his  thoughts 
inward,  and  matured  them  by  deep  and  serious  med- 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  517 


itation.  He  had  none  of  the  volatile  talents  of  his 
rival,  who  seems  to  have  parted  with  his  brilliant 
fancies  as  readily  as  the  tree  gives  up  its  leaves  in 
autumn.  Ariosto  was  a  man  of  the  world,  and  in 
his  philosophy  may  be  styled  an  Epicurean.  His 
satires  show  a  familiarity  with  the  practical  con¬ 
cerns  of  life,  and  a  deep  insight  into  the  characters 
of  men.  His  conceptions,  however,  were  of  the 
earth ;  and  his  pure  style,  which  may  be  compared 
with  Alcina’s  transparent  drapery,  too  often  reveals 
to  us  the  grossest  impurity  of  thought. 

The  muse  of  Tasso  wTas  of  a  heavenly  nature,  and 
nourished  herself  with  celestial  visions  and  ideal 
forms  of  beauty.  He  was  a  disciple  of  Plato,  and 
hence  the  source  of  his  general  elevation  of  thought, 
and  too  often  of  his  mystical  abstraction.  The 
healthful  bloom  of  his  language  imparts  an  inexpres¬ 
sible  charm  to  the  purity  of  his  sentiments,  and  it  is 
truly  astonishing  that  so  chaste  and  dignified  a  com¬ 
position  should  have  been  produced  in  an  age  and 
court  so  corrupt. 

Both  of  these  great  artists  elaborated  their  style 
with  the  utmost  care,  but  with  totally  different  re¬ 
sults.  This  frequently  gave  to  Tasso’s  verse  the  fin¬ 
ish  of  a  lyrical,  or,  rather,  of  a  musical  composition  ; 
for  many  of  his  stanzas  have  less  resemblance  to  the 
magnificent  rhythm  of  Petrarch  than  to  the  melodi¬ 
ous  monotony  of  Metastasio.  This  must  be  con¬ 
sidered  a  violation  of  the  true  epic  style.  It  is  sin¬ 
gular  that  Tasso  himself,  in  one  of  his  poetical  crit¬ 
icisms,  should  have  objected  this  very  defect  to  his 


518  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

rival.*  The  elaboration  of  Ariosto,  on  the  other 
hand,  resulted  in  that  exquisite  negligence,  or,  rather, 
artlessness  of  expression,  so  easy  in  appearance,  but 
so  difficult  in  reality  to  be  imitated : 

“  Facil’  versi  che  costan  tanta  pena.” 

The  Jerusalem  Delivered  is  placed,  by  the  nice 
discrimination  of  the  Italian  critics,  at  the  head  of 
their  heroic  epics.  In  its  essence,  however,  it  is 
strictly  romantic,  though  in  its  form  it  is  accommo¬ 
dated  to  the  general  proportions  of  the  antique.  In 
Ariosto’s  complicated  fable  it  is  difficult  to  discern 
either  a  leading  hero  or  a  predominant  action.  Sis- 
mondi  applauds  Ginguene  for  having  discovered  this 
hero  in  Ruggiero.  But  both  these  writers  might 
have  found  this  discovery,  where  it  was  revealed 
more  than  two  centuries  ago,  in  Tasso’s  own  Dis- 
courses.f  We  doubt,  however,  its  accuracy,  and 
cannot  but  think  that  the  prominent  part  assigned 
to  Orlando,  from  whom  the  poem  derives  its  name, 
manifests  a  different  intention  In  the  author. 

The  stately  and  imposing  beauties  of  Tasso’s  epic 
have  rendered  it  generally  the  most  acceptable  to 
foreigners,  while  the  volatile  graces  of  Ariosto  have 
made  him  most  popular  with  his  own  nation.  Both 
poets  have  had  the  rare  felicity,  not  only  of  obtain¬ 
ing  the  applause  of  the  learned,  but  of  circulating 
among  the  humblest  classes  of  their  countrymen 
Fragments  of  the  Furioso  are  still  recited  by  the  laz - 
zaroni  of  Naples,  as  those  of  the  Jerusalem  once 
were  by  the  gondoliers  of  Venice,  where  this  beau- 


*  Discorsi  Poetici,  iii. 


t  Ibid.,  ii 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  519 


tiful  epic,  broken  up  into  ballads,  might  be  heard  for 
miles  along  the  canals  on  a  tranquil  summer  even¬ 
ing.  Had  Boileau,  who  so  bitterly  sneers  at  the 
clinquant  of  Tasso,  “heard  these  musical  contests/' 
says  Voltaire,  “he  would  have  had  nothing  to  say." 
It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  these  two  celebrated 
poems,  together  with  the  Aminta,  the  Pastor  Fido, 
and  the  Secchia  Rapita,  were  all  produced  within 
the  brief  compass  of  a  century,  in  the  petty  princi¬ 
pality  of  the  house  of  Este,  which  thus  seemed  to 
indemnify  itself  for  its  scanty  territory  by  its  ample 
acquisitions  in  the  intellectual  world. 

The  mass  of  epical  imitations  in  Italy,  both  of 
Ariosto  and  Tasso,  especially  the  former,  is  perfect¬ 
ly  overwhelming.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  understand  the 
patience  with  which  the  Italians  have  resigned  them¬ 
selves  to  these  interminable  poems  of  seventy,  eigh¬ 
ty,  or  even  ninety  thousand  verses  each.  Many  of 
them,  it  must  be  admitted,  are  the  work  of  men  of 
real  genius,  and,  in  a  literature  less  fruitful  in  epic 
excellence,  would  have  given  a  wide  celebrity  to 
their  authors  ;  and  the  amount  of  others  of  less  note, 
in  a  department  so  rarely  attempted  in  other  coun¬ 
tries,  shows  in  the  nation  at  large  a  wonderful  fe¬ 
cundity  of  fancy. 

The  Italians,  desirous  of  combining  as  many  at¬ 
tractions  as  possible,  and  extremely  sensible  to  har¬ 
mony,  have  not,  as  has  been  the  case  in  France  and 
England,  divested  their  romances  of  the  music  of 
verse.  They  have  rarely  adopted  a  national  subject 
for  their  story,  but  have  condescended  to  borrow 


520  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

those  of  the  old  Norman  minstrels;  and  in  conform¬ 
ity  with  the  characteristic  temperament  of  the  na¬ 
tion,  they  have  almost  always  preferred  the  mercu¬ 
rial  temper  of  the  court  of  Charlemagne  to  the  more 
sober  complexion  of  the  Round  Table.* 

With  a  few  exceptions,  the  romantic  poets,  since 
the  time  of  Ariosto,  appear  to  have  gained  as  little 
in  elevation  of  sentiment  as  in  national  feeling.  The 
nice  classification  of  their  critics  seems  to  relate 
only  to  their  varieties  of  comic  character,  and  as  we 
descend  to  a  later  period,  the  fine,  equivocal  raillery 
of  the  older  romances  degenerates  into  a  broad  and 
undisguised  burlesque.  In  the  latter  class,  the  Ric- 
ciardetto  of  Fortiguerra  is  a  jest  rather  than  a  sa¬ 
tire  upon  tales  of  chivalry.  The  singular  union 
which  this  work  exhibits  of  elegance  of  style  and 
homeliness  of  subject,  may  have  furnished,  especial¬ 
ly  in  its  introduction,  the  model  of  that  species  of 
poetry  which  Lord  Byron  has  familiarized  us  with 
in  Don  Juan,  where  the  contrast  of  sentiment  and 
satire,  of  vivid  passion  and  chill  misanthropy,  of  im¬ 
ages  of  beauty  and  splenetic  sarcasm,  may  remind 
one  of  the  whimsical  combinations  in  Alpine  scenery, 
where  the  strawberry  blooms  on  the  verge  of  a  snow- 
wreath. 

The  Italians  claim  to  have  given  the  first  models 
of  mock  heroic  poetry  in  modern  times.  The  Sec- 
cliia  Rapita  of  Tassoni  has  the  merit  of  a  graceful 
versification,  exhibiting  many  exquisite  pictures  of 

*  The  French  antiquary,  Tressan,  furnishes  an  exception  to  the  gen¬ 
eral  criticism  of  his  countrymen,  in  admitting  the  superiority  of  this  lat¬ 
ter  c]ass  of  romances  over  those  of  Charlemagne. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  521 

voluptuous  repose,  and  some  passages  of  an  imposing 
grandeur.  But  these  accord  ill  with  the  vulgar  mer¬ 
riment  and  general  burlesque  tone  of  the  piece, 
which,  on  the  whole,  presents  a  strange  medley  of 
beauties  and  blemishes  mixed  up  promiscuously  to¬ 
gether.  Twelve  cantos  of  hard  fighting  and  cutting 
of  throats  are  far  too  serious  for  a  joke.  The  blood¬ 
less  battle  of  the  books  in  the  Lutrin,  or  those  of 
the  pot-valiant  heroes  of  Knickerbocker,  are  in  much 
better  keeping.  The  Italians  have  no  poetry  of  a 
mezzo  carattere  like  our  Rape  of  the  Lock,*  where 
a  fine  atmosphere  of  irony  pervades  the  piece,  and 
gives  life  to  every  character  in  it.  They  appear  to 
delight  in  that  kind  of  travestie  which  reduces  great 
things  into  little,  but  which  is  of  a  much  less  spirit¬ 
ual  nature  than  that  which  exalts  little  things  into 
great.  Parini’s  exquisite  Giorno,  if  the  satire  had 
not  rather  too  sharp  an  edge,  might  furnish  an  ex¬ 
ception  to  both  these  remarks. 

But  it  is  time  that  we  should  turn  to  the  Novelle, 
those  delightful  “  tales  of  pleasantry  and  love,”  which 
form  one  of  the  most  copious  departments  of  the 
national  literature.  And  here  we  may  remark  two 
peculiarities:  first,  that  similar  tales  in  France  and 
England  fell  entirely  into  neglect  after  the  fifteenth 
century,  while  in  Italy  they  have  been  cultivated 
with  the  most  unwearied  assiduity  from  their  ear¬ 
liest  appearance  to  the  present  hour ;  secondly,  that 
in  both  the  former  countries  the  fabliaux  were  almost 
universally  exhibited  in  a  poetical  dress,  while  in 


*  Pignotti,  Stor.  del.  Toscana,  tom.  x.,  p.  132. 

Uuu 


522  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

Italy,  contrary  to  the  popular  taste  on  all  other  oc¬ 
casions,  they  have  been  as  uniformly  exhibited  in 
prose.  These  peculiarities  are  undoubtedly  to  be 
imputed  to  the  influence  of  Boccaccio,  whose  trans¬ 
cendent  genius  gave  a  permanent  popularity  to  this 
kind  of  composition,  and  finally  determined  the 
forms  of  elegant  prose  with  his  nation. 

The  appearance  of  the  Decameron  is,  in  some 
points  of  view,  as  remarkable  a  phenomenon  as  that 
of  the  Divine  Comedy.  It  furnishes  the  only  ex¬ 
ample  on  record  of  the  almost  simultaneous  devel¬ 
opment  of  prose  and  poetry  in  the  literature  of  a 
nation.  The  earliest  prose  of  any  pretended  liter¬ 
ary  value  in  the  Greek  tongue,  the  most  precocious 
of  any  of  antiquity,  must  be  placed  near  four  centu¬ 
ries  after  the  poems  of  Homer.  To  descend  to 
modern  times,  the  Spaniards  have  a  little  work,  “  El 
Conde  Lucanor,”  nearly  contemporary  with  the 
Decameron,  written  on  somewhat  of  a  similar  plan, 
but  far  more  didactic  in  its  purport.  Its  style,  though 
marked  by  a  certain  freshness  and  naivete ,  the  healthy 
beauties  of  an  infant  dialect,  has  nothing  of  a  class¬ 
ical  finish  ;  to  which,  indeed,  Castilian  prose,  not¬ 
withstanding  its  fine  old  chronicles  and  romances, 
can  make  no  pretension  before  the  close  of  the  fif¬ 
teenth  century.  In  France,  a  still  later  period  must 
be  assigned  for  this  perfection.  Dante,  it  is  true, 
speaks  of  the  peculiar  suitableness  of  the  French 
language  in  his  day  for  prose  narration,  on  account 
of  its  flexibility  and  freedom  ;*  but  Dante  had  few 


*  De  Vulg.  Eloq.,  lib.  i.,  cap.  x. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  523 


and  very  inadequate  standards  of  comparison,  and 
experience  lias  shown  how  many  ages  of  purifica¬ 
tion  it  was  to  undergo  before  it  could  become  the 
vehicle  of  elegant  composition.  Pascal’s  Provincial 
Letters  furnish,  in  the  opinion  of  the  national  critics, 
the  earliest  specimen  of  good  prose.  It  would  be 
more  difficult  to  agree  upon  the  author,  or  the  pe¬ 
riod  that  arrested  the  fleeting  forms  of  expression  in 
our  own  language ;  but  we  certainly  could  not  ven¬ 
ture  upon  an  earlier  date  than  the  conclusion  of  the 
seventeenth  century. 

The  style  of  the  Decameron  exhibits  the  full  ma¬ 
turity  of  an  Augustan  age.  The  finish  of  its  periods, 
its  long,  Latinized  involutions,  but  especially  its  re¬ 
dundancy  and  Asiatic  luxury  of  expression,  vices 
imputed  to  Cicero  by  his  own  contemporaries,  as 
Quintilian  informs  us,  reveal  to  us  the  model  on 
which  Boccaccio  diligently  formed  himself.  In  the 
more  elevated  parts  of  his  subject  he  reaches  to  an 
eloquence  not  unworthy  of  the  Roman  orator  him¬ 
self.  The  introductions  to  his  novels,  chiefly  de¬ 
scriptive,  are  adorned  with  all  the  music  and  the 
colouring  of  poetry ;  much  too  poetic,  indeed,  for 
the  prose  of  any  other  tongue.  It  cannot  be  doubt¬ 
ed  that  this  brilliant  piece  of  mechanism  has  had  an 
immense  influence  on  the  Italians,  both  in  seducing 
them  into  a  too  exclusive  attention  to  mere  beauties 
of  style,  and  in  leading  them  to  solicit  such  beauties 
in  graver  and  less  appropriate  subjects  than  those  of 
pure  invention. 

Tn  the  celebrated  description  of  the  Plague,  how- 


524  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ever,  Boccaccio  has  shown  a  muscular  energy  of 
diction  quite  worthy  of  the  pen  of  Thucydides.  Yet 
there  is  no  satisfactory  evidence  that  he  had  read 
the  similar  performance  of  the  Greek  historian,  and 
the  conjecture  of  Baldelli  to  that  effect  is  founded 
only  on  a  resemblance  of  some  detached  passages, 
which  might  well  occur  in  treating  of  a  similar  dis¬ 
ease.*  In  the  delineation  of  its  fearful  moral  con¬ 
sequences,  Boccaccio  has  undoubtedly  surpassed  his 
predecessor.  It  is  singular  that  of  the  three  cele¬ 
brated  narratives  of  this  distemper,  that  by  the  Eng¬ 
lishman,  De  Foe,  is  by  far  the  most  circumstantial 
in  its  details,  and  yet  that  he  was  the  only  one  of 
the  three  historians  who  was  not  an  eyewitness  to 
what  he  relates.f  The  Plague  of  London  happen¬ 
ed  in  the  year  succeeding  his  birth. 

The  Italian  novelists  have  followed  so  closely  in 
the  track  of  Boccaccio,  that  w7e  may  discuss  their 
general  attributes  without  particular  reference  to 
him,  their  beauties  and  their  blemishes  varying  only 
in  degree.  They  ransacked  every  quarter  for  their 
inventions  :  Eastern  legends,  Norman  fabliaux ,  do¬ 
mestic  history,  tradition,  and  vulgar,  contemporary 
anecdote.  They  even  helped  themselves,  plenis 
■ manibus ,  to  one  another’s  fancies,  particularly  filch¬ 
ing  from  the  Decameron,  which  has  for  this  reason 
been  pleasantly  compared  to  a  pawnbroker’s  shop. 
But  no  exceptions  seem  to  be  taken  at  such  plagia- 

*  Vita  di  Boccaccio,  lib.  ii.,  s.  2,  note. 

f  It  seems  probable,  however,  from  a  passage  in  Boccaccio,  cited  by 
Bandelli,  that  he  witnessed  the  plague  in  some  other  city  of  Italy  than 
Florence. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  525 


rism,  and,  as  long  as  the  story  could  be  disguised  in 
a  different  dress,  they  cared  little  for  the  credit  of 
the  invention.  These  fictions  are  oftentimes  of  the 
most  grotesque  and  improbable  character,  exhibiting 
no  great  skill  in  the  liaison  of  events,  which  are 
strung  together  with  the  rude  artlessness  of  a  prim¬ 
itive  trouveur ,  while  most  promising  beginnings  are 
frequently  brought  up  by  flat  and  impotent  conclu¬ 
sions.  Many  of  the  novelle  are  made  up  of  mere 
personal  anecdote,  proverbialisms,  and  Florentine 
table-talk,  the  ingredients  of  an  encyclopedia  of  wit. 
In  all  this,  however,  we  often  find  less  wit  than 
merriment,  which  shows  itself  in  the  most  puerile 
practical  jokes,  played  off  upon  idiots,  unfortunate 
pedants,  and  other  imbeciles,  with  as  little  taste  as 

The  novelle  wear  the  usual  light  and  cheerful  as¬ 
pect  of  Italian  literature.  They  seldom  aim  at  a 
serious  or  didactic  purpose.  Their  tragical  scenes, 
though  very  tragical,  are  seldom  affecting.  We  rec¬ 
ollect  in  them  no  example  of  the  passion  of  love 
treated  with  the  depth  and  tenderness  of  feeling  so 
frequent  in  the  English  dramatists  and  novelists. 
They  can  make  little  pretension,  indeed,  to  accu¬ 
rate  delineation  of  character  of  any  sort.  Even 
Boccaccio,  who  has  acquired,  in  our  opinion,  a 
somewhat  undeserved  celebrity  in  this  way,  paints 
professions  rather  than  individuals.  The  brevity  of 
the  Italian  tale,  which  usually  affords  space  only  for 
the  exhibition  of  a  catastrophe,  is  an  important  ob¬ 
stacle  to  a  gradual  development  of  character. 


526  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

A  remarkable  trait  in  these  novelle  is  the  extreme 
boldness  with  which  the  reputations  of  the  clergy 
are  handled.  Their  venality,  lechery,  hypocrisy, 
and  abominable  impositions  are  all  exposed  with  a 
reckless  independence.  The  head  of  the  Church 
himself  is  not  spared.  It  is  not  easy  to  account  for 
this  authorized  latitude  in  a  country  where  so  jeal¬ 
ous  a  surveillance  has  been  maintained  over  the  free¬ 
dom  of  the  press  in  relation  to  other  topics.  War- 
ton  attempts  to  explain  it,  as  far  as  regards  the  De¬ 
cameron,  by  supposing  that  the  ecclesiastics  of  that 
age  had  become  tainted  with  the  dissoluteness  so 
prevalent  after  the  Plague  of  1348  ;  and  Madame  de 
Stael  suggests  that  the  government  winked  at  this 
license  as  the  jesting  of  children,  who  are  content  to 
obey  their  masters  so  they  may  laugh  at  them.  But 
neither  of  these  solutions  will  suffice  ;  for  the  license 
of  Boccaccio  has  been  assumed  more  or  less  by 
nearly  every  succeeding  novelist,  and  the  jests  of 
this  merry  tribe  have  been  converted  into  the  most 
stinging  satire  on  the  clergy,  in  the  hands  of  the  gra¬ 
vest  and  most  powerful  writers  of  the  nation,  from 
Dante  to  Monti. 

It  may  be  truly  objected  to  the  Italian  novelists, 
that  they  have  been  as  little  solicitous  about  purity 
of  sentiment  as  they  have  been  too  much  so  about 
purity  of  style.  The  reproach  of  indecency  lies 
heavily  upon  most  of  their  writings,  from  the  Decam¬ 
eron  to  the  infamous  tales  of  Casti,  which,  reeking 
with  the  corruption  of  a  brothel,  have  passed  into 
several  surreptitious  editions  during  the  present  cen- 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  52 V 

i  ’ 

tury.  This  indecency  is  not  always  a  mere  excres¬ 
cence,  but  deeply  ingrained  in  the  body  of  the  piece. 
It  is  not  conveyed  in  innuendo,  or  softened  under 
the  varnish  of  sentiment,  but  is  exhibited  in  all  the 
nakedness  of  detail  which  a  debauched  imagination 
can  divine.  Petrarch’s  encomiastic  letter  to  his 
friend  Boccaccio,  written  at  the  close  of  his  own  life, 
in  which  he  affects  to  excuse  the  licentiousness  of 
the  Decameron  from  the  youth  of  the  author,*  al¬ 
though  he  was  turned  of  forty  when  he  composed  it, 
has  been  construed  into  an  ample  apology  for  their 
own  transgressions  by  the  subsequent  school  of  nov¬ 
elists. 

It  is  true  that  some  of  the  popes,  of  a  more  fastid¬ 
ious  conscience,  have  taken  exceptions  at  the  license 
of  the  Decameron,  and  have  placed  it  on  the  Index ; 
but  an  expurgated  edition,  whose  only  alteration 
consisted  in  the  substitution  of  lay  names  for  those 
of  the  clergy,  set  all  things  right  again. 

Such  adventures  as  the  seduction  of  a  friend’s 
wife,  or  the  deceptions  practised  upon  a  confiding 
husband,  are  represented  as  excellent  pieces  of  wit 
in  these  fictions — in  some  of  the  best  of  them,  even  ; 
and  often  when  their  authors  would  be  moral, 
they  betray,  in  their  confused  perceptions  of  right 
and  wrong,  the  most  deplorable  destitution  of  a  mor¬ 
al  sense.  Grazzini  (il  L asca),  one  of  the  most  pop¬ 
ular  of  the  tribe  of  the  sixteenth  century,  after  invo¬ 
king,  in  the  most  solemn  manner,  the  countenance 
of  the  Deity  upon  his  labours,  and  beseeching  him 


*  Petrarca  Op.,  ed.  Basil.,  p.  540. 


528  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

to  inspire  his  mind  with  “  such  thoughts  only  as  may 
redound  to  his  praise  and  glory,”  enters  immediately, 
in  the  next  page,  upon  one  of  the  most  harefaced 
specimens  of  “  bold  bawdry,”  to  make  use  of  the 
plain  language  of  Roger  Ascham,  that  is  to  be  found 
in  the  whole  work.  It  is  not  easy  to  estimate  the 
demoralizing  influence  of  writings,  many  of  which, 
being  possessed  of  the  beauties  of  literary  finish,  are 
elevated  into  the  rank  of  classics,  and  thus  find  their 
way  into  the  most  reserved  and  fastidious  libraries. 

The  literary  execution  of  these  tales  is,  however, 
by  no  means  equal.  In  some  it  is  even  neglected, 
and  in  all  falls  below  that  of  their  great  original. 
Still,  in  the  larger  part  the  graces  of  style  are  sedu¬ 
lously  cultivated,  and  in  many  constitute  the  princi¬ 
pal  merit.  Some  of  their  authors,  especially  the 
more  ancient,  as  Sacchetti  and  Ser  Giovanni,  derive 
great  repute  from  their  picturesque  proverbialisms 
( riboboli ),  the  racy  slang  of  the  Florentine  mob  ; 
pearls  of  little  price  with  foreigners,  but  of  great  es¬ 
timation  with  their  own  countrymen.  On  these 
qualities,  however,  as  on  all  those  of  mere  external 
form,  a  stranger  should  pronounce  with  great  diffi¬ 
dence  ;  but  the  intellectual  and  moral  character  of  a 
composition,  especially  the  last,  are  open  to  univer¬ 
sal  criticism.  The  principles  of  taste  may  differ  in 
different  nations  ;  but,  however  often  obscured  by 
education  or  habit,  there  can  be  only  one  true  stand¬ 
ard  of  morality. 

We  may  concede,  then,  to  many  of  the  novette , 
the  merits  of  a  delicate  work  of  art,  gracefulness, 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  529 


nay,  eloquence  of  style,  agreeable  facility  of  narra¬ 
tive,  pleasantry  that  sometimes  rises  into  wit,  occa¬ 
sional  developments  of  character,  and  an  inexhaust¬ 
ible  novelty  of  situation.  But  we  cannot  help  re¬ 
gretting  that,  while  so  many  of  the  finest  wits  of  the 
nation  have  amused  themselves  with  these  compo¬ 
sitions,  they  should  not  have  exhibited  virtue  in  a 
more  noble  and  imposing  attitude,  or  studied  a  more 
scientific  delineation  of  passion,  or  a  more  direct 
moral  aim  or  practical  purpose.  How  rarely  do  we 
find,  unless  it  be  in  some  few  of  the  last  century,  the 
didactic  or  even  satirical  tone  of  the  English  essay¬ 
ists,  who  seldom  assume  the  Oriental  garb,  so  fre¬ 
quent  in  Italian  tales,  for  any  other  purpose  than 
that  of  better  conveying  a  prudential  lesson.  Gold¬ 
smith  and  Hawkesworth  may  furnish  us  with  perti¬ 
nent  examples  of  this.  How  rarely  do  we  recognise 
in  these  novelle  the  living  portraiture  of  Chaucer,  or 
the  philosophical  point  which  sharpens  the  pleasant¬ 
ry  of  La  Fontaine;  both  competitors  in  the  same 
walk.  Without  any  higher  object  than  that  of  pres¬ 
ent  amusement,  these  productions,  like  many  others 
of  their  elegant  literature,  seem  to  be  thrown  off  in 
the  mere  gayety  of  the  heart. 

Chaucer,  in  his  peculiarities,  represents  as  faith¬ 
fully  those  of  the  English  nation  as  his  rival  and 
contemporary,  Boccaccio,  represents  the  Italian.  In 
a  searching  anatomy  of  the  human  heart,  he  as  far 
excels  the  latter,  as  in  rhetorical  beauty  he  is  sur¬ 
passed  by  him.  The  prologue  to  his  Canterbury 
Tales  alone  contains  a  gallery  of  portraits,  such  as 

X  x  x 


530  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

is  not  to  be  found  in  the  whole  compass  of  the  De¬ 
cameron;  his  friar,  for  example, 

“  That  somewhat  lisped  from  his  wantonnesse 
To  make  his  English  sweete  upon  his  tonge 

his  worthy  parson,  “  glad  to  teche  and  glad  to  lerne 
his  man  of  law,  who 

“  Though  so  besy  a  man  as  he  ther  n’  as, 

Yet  seemed  besier  than  he  was 

and  his  inimitable  wag  of  a  host,  breaking  his  jests, 
like  Falstaff,  indiscriminately  upon  every  one  he 
meets.  Chaucer  was  a  shrewd  observer  of  the  re¬ 
alities  of  life.  He  did  not  indulge  in  day-dreams  of 
visionary  perfection.  His  little  fragment  of  Sir 
Thopaz  is  a  fine  quiz  upon  the  incredibilia  of  chiv¬ 
alry.  In  his  conclusion  of  the  story  of  the  patient 
Griselde,  instead  of  adopting  the  somewhat  fade  eu- 
logiums  of  Boccaccio,  he  good-naturedly  jests  at  the 
ultra  perfection  of  the  heroine.  Like  Shakspeare 
and  Scott,  his  successors  and  superiors  in  the  school 
of  character,  he  seems  to  have  had  too  vivid  a  per¬ 
ception  of  the  vanities  of  human  life  to  allow  him 
for  a  moment  to  give  into  those  extravagances  of 
perfection  which  have  sprung  from  the  brain  of  so 
many  fond  enthusiasts. 

Chaucer’s  genius  was  every  way  equal  to  that  of 
Boccaccio,  yet  the  direct  influence  of  the  one  can 
scarcely  be  discerned  beyond  his  own  age,  while 
that  of  the  other  has  reached  to  the  present  genera¬ 
tion.  A  principal  cause  of  this  is  the  difference  of 
their  style ;  that  of  the  former  exhibiting  only  the 
rude  graces  of  a  primitive  dialect,  while  Boccaccio’s 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  531 


may  be  said  to  have  reached  the  full  prime  of  a  cul¬ 
tivated  period.  Another  cause  is  discernible  in  the 
new  and  more  suitable  forms  which  came  to  be 
adopted  for  that  delineation  of  character  which  con¬ 
stitutes  the  essence  of  Chaucer’s  fictions,  viz.,  those 
of  the  drama  and  the  extended  novel,  in  both  of 
which  Italian  literature  has,  until  very  recently,  been 
singularly  deficient.  Boccaccio  made  two  elaborate 
essays  in  novel-writing,  hut  his  genius  seems  to  have 
been  ill  adapted  to  it,  and  in  his  strange  and  prolix 
narrative,  which  brings  upon  the  stage  again  the  ob¬ 
solete  deities  of  antiquity,  even  the  natural  graces 
of  his  style  desert  him.  The  attempt  has  scarcely 
been  repeated  until  our  day,  when  the  impulse  com¬ 
municated  by  the  English,  in  romance  and  historical 
novel-writing,  to  other  nations  on  the  Continent, 
seems  to  have  extended  itself  to  Italy ;  and  the  ex¬ 
traordinary  favour  which  has  been  showTn  there  to 
the  first  essays  in  this  way,  may  perhaps  lead  even¬ 
tually  to  more  brilliant  successes. 

The  Spaniards,  under  no  better  circumstances 
than  the  Italians,  made,  previously  to  the  last-men¬ 
tioned  period,  a  nearer  approach  to  the  genuine 
novel.  Cervantes  has  furnished,  amid  his  carica¬ 
tures  of  chivalry,  many  passages  of  exquisite  pathos 
and  pleasantry,  and  a  rich  variety  of  national  por¬ 
traiture.  The  same,  though  in  a  less  degree,  may 
be  affirmed  of  his  shorter  tales,  Novelets  exemplares , 
which,  however  inferior  to  those  of  the  Decameron 
in  rhetorical  elegance,  certainly  surpass  them  in  their 
practical  application.  But  the  peculiar  property  of 


532  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

the  Spaniards  is  their  picaresco  novel,  a  mere  chron¬ 
icle  of  the  adventures  and  mischievous  pranks  of 
young  pickpockets  and  chevaliers  d' Industrie,  invent¬ 
ed,  whimsically  enough,  by  a  Castilian  grandee,  one 
of  the  proudest  of  his  caste ,  and  which,  notwithstand¬ 
ing  the  glaring  contrast  it  affords  to  the  habitual 
gravity  of  the  nation,  has,  perhaps  from  this  very 
circumstance,  been  a  great  favourite  with  it  ever 
since. 

The  French  have  made  other  advances  in  novel¬ 
writing.  They  have  produced  many  specimens  of 
wit  and  of  showy  sentiment,  but  they  seldom  afford 
any  wide  range  of  observation,  or  searching  views 
of  character.  The  conventional  breeding  that  uni¬ 
versally  prevails  in  France  has  levelled  all  inequal¬ 
ities  of  rank,  and  obliterated,  as  it  were,  the  moral 
physiognomy  of  the  different  classes,  which,  however 
salutary  in  other  respects,  is  exceedingly  unpropi- 
tious  to  the  purposes  of  the  novelist.  Moliere,  the 
most  popular  character- monger  of  the  French,  has 
penetrated  the  superficies  of  the  most  artificial  state 
of  society.  His  spirited  sketches  of  fashionable  fol¬ 
ly,  though  very  fine,  very  Parisian,  are  not  always 
founded  on  the  universal  principles  of  human  na¬ 
ture,  and,  when  founded  on  these,  they  are  sure  to 
be  carried  more  or  less  into  caricature.  The  French 
have  little  of  the  English  talent  for  humour.  They 
have  buffoonery,  a  lively  wit,  and  a  naivete  beyond 
the  reach  of  art — Rabelais,  Voltaire,  La  Fontaine — 
everything  but  humour.  How  spiritless  and  affect¬ 
ed  are  the  caricatures  so  frequently  stuck  up  at  their 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  533 


shop-windows,  and  which  may  be  considered  as  the 
popular  expression  in  this  way,  compared  with  those 
of  the  English.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  a 
French  Goldsmith  or  Fielding,  a  Hogarth  or  a  Wil¬ 
kie.  They  have,  indeed,  produced  a  Le  Sage,  but 
he  seems  to  have  confessed  the  deficiency  of  his  own 
nation  by  deriving  his  models  exclusively  from  a 
foreign  one. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  freedom  of  the  political 
and  social  institutions,  both  in  this  country  and  in 
England,  wrhich  has  encouraged  the  undisguised  ex¬ 
pansion  of  intellect  and  of  peculiarities  of  temper, 
has  made  them  the  proper  theatre  for  the  student  of 
his  species.  Hence  man  has  been  here  delineated 
with  an  accuracy  quite  unrivalled  in  any  ancient  or 
modern  nation,  and,  as  the  Greeks  have  surpassed 
every  later  people  in  statuary,  from  their  familiarity 
with  the  visible,  naked  forms  of  manly  beauty,  so 
the  English  may  be  said,  from  an  analogous  cause, 
to  have  excelled  all  others  in  moral  portraiture.  To 
this  point  their  most  eminent  artists  have  directed 
their  principal  attention.  We  have  already  noticed 
it  in  Chaucer.  It  formed  the  essence  of  the  drama 
in  Elizabeth’s  time,  as  it  does  that  of  the  modern 
novel.  Shakspeare  and  Scott,  in  their  respective 
departments,  have  undoubtedly  carried  this  art  to 
the  highest  perfection  of  wdiich  it  is  capable,  sacri¬ 
ficing  to  it  every  minor  consideration  of  probability, 
incident,  and  gradation  of  plot,  which  they  seem  to 
have  valued  only  so  far  as  they  might  be  made  sub¬ 
servient  to  the  main  purpose  of  a  clearer  exposition 
of  character. 


534  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

\ 

But  it  is  time  to  return  from  the  digression  into 
which  we  have  been  led  by  a  desire  of  illustrating 
certain  peculiarities  of  Italian  literature,  which  can 
in  no  way  be  done  so  well  as  by  comparing  them 
with  those  of  corresponding  departments  in  other 
languages.  Such  a  comparison  abundantly  shows 
how  much  deeper  and  more  philosophical  have  been 
the  views  proposed  by  prose  fiction  in  England  than 
in  Italy. 

We  have  reserved  the  Drama  for  the  last,  as,  un¬ 
til  a  very  recent  period,  it  has  been  less  prolific  in 
eminent  models  than  either  of  the  great  divisions  of 
Italian  letters.  Yet  it  has  been  the  one  most  assid¬ 
uously  cultivated  from  a  very  early  period,  and  this, 
too,  by  the  ripest  scholars  and  most  approved  wits. 
The  career  was  opened  by  such  minds  as  Ariosto 
and  Machiavelli,  at  a  time  when  the  theatres  in  oth¬ 
er  parts  of  Europe  had  given  birth  only  to  the  un¬ 
seemly  abortions  of  mysteries  and  moralities.  Bou- 
terwek  has  been  led  into  a  strange  error  in  impu¬ 
ting  the  low  condition  of  the  Italian  drama  to  the 
small  number  of  men,  of  even  moderate  abilities, 
who  have  cultivated  it.*  A  glance  at  the  long  mus¬ 
ter-roll  of  eminent  persons  employed  upon  it,  from 
Machiavelli  to  Monti,  will  prove  the  contrary.!  The 
unprecedented  favour  bestowed  on  the  most  success¬ 
ful  of  the  dramatic  writers  may  serve  to  show,  at 
least,  the  aspirations  of  the  people.  The  Merope 

*  See  the  conclusion  of  his  History  of  Spanish  Literature. 

f  See  Allacci’s  Drammaturgia,  passim,  and  Riccoboni  Theatre  Ital., 
tom.  i.,  p.  187-208.  Allacci’s  catalogue,  as  continued  down  to  the  mid¬ 
dle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  occupies  nearly  a  thousand  quarto  pages. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  535 


of  Maffei,  which  may  be  deemed  the  first  dawn  of 
improvement  in  the  tragic  art,  passed  through  sixty 
editions.  Notwithstanding  all  this,  the  Italians,  in 
comedy,  and  still  more  in  tragedy,  until  the  late  ap¬ 
parition  of  Alfieri,  remained  far  below  several  of  the 
other  nations  of  Europe. 

A  principal  cause  of  their  repeated  failures  has 
been  often  referred  to  the  inherent  vices  of  their 
system,  which  required  a  blind  conformity  with  the 
supposed  rules  of  Aristotle.  Under  the  cumbrous 
load  of  antiquity,  the  freedom  and  grace  of  natural 
movement  were  long  impeded.  Their  first  attempts 
were  translations,  or  literal  imitations  of  the  Latin 
theatre  ;  some  of  these,  though  objectionable  in  form, 
contain  the  true  spirit  of  comedy.  Those  of  Ariosto 
and  Machiavelli,  in  particular,  with  even  greater  li¬ 
centiousness  of  detail,  and  a  more  immoral  conclu¬ 
sion  than  belong  either  to  Plautus  or  Terence,  fully 
equal,  perhaps  surpass  them,  in  their  spirited  and 
whimsical  draughts  of  character.  Ariosto  is  never 
more  a  satirist  than  in  his  comedies ;  and  Machia¬ 
velli,  in  his  Mandragola,  has  exposed  the  hypocri¬ 
sies  of  religion  with  a  less  glaring  caricature  than 
Moliere  has  shown  in  his  Tartuffe.  The  spirit  of 
these  great  masters  did  not  descend  to  their  imme¬ 
diate  successors.  Goldoni,  however,  the  Moliere  of 
Italy,  in  his  numerous  comedies  or  farces,  has  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  giving  a  lively,  graphic  portraiture  of  local 
manners,  with  infinite  variety  and  comic  power,  but 
no  great  depth  of  interest.  He  has  seldom  risen  to 
refined  and  comprehensive  views  of  society,  and  his 


536  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

pieces,  we  may  trust,  are  not  to  be  received  as  faith¬ 
fully  reflecting  the  national  character,  which  they 
would  make  singularly  deficient  both  in  virtue  and 
the  principle  of  honour.  The  writers  who  have 
followed  in  the  footsteps  of  Goldoni,  exhibit,  for  the 
most  part,  similar  defects,  with  far  inferior  comic 
talent.  Their  productions,  on  the  whole,  however, 
may  be  thought  to  maintain  an  advantageous  com¬ 
parison  with  those  of  any  other  people  in  Europe 
during  the  same  period,  although  some  of  them,  to 
judge  from  the  encomiastic  tone  of  their  critics,  ap¬ 
pear  to  have  obtained  a  wider  celebrity  with  their 
contemporaries  than  will  be  probably  conceded  to 
them  by  posterity.  The  comedies  of  art  which  Gol¬ 
doni  superseded,  and  which  were,  perhaps,  more  in¬ 
dicative  of  the  national  taste  than  any  other  dramat¬ 
ic  performances,  can  hardly  come  within  the  scope 
of  literary  criticism. 

The  Italian  writers  would  seem  not  even  to  have 
agreed  upon  a  suitable  measure  for  comedy,  some 
using  the  common  versi  sciolti ,  some  the  sdruccioli, 
others,  again,  the  marteUiani ,  and  many  more  pre¬ 
ferring  prose.*  Another  impediment  to  their  suc¬ 
cess  is  the  great  variety  of  dialects  in  Italy,  as  nu¬ 
merous  as  her  petty  states,  which  prevents  the  rec¬ 
ognition  of  any  one  uniform  style  of  familiar  con¬ 
versation  for  comedy.  The  greater  part  of  the 
pieces  of  Goldoni  are  written,  more  or  less,  in  the 

*  Professor  Salfi  affirms  prose  to  be  the  most  suitable,  indeed  the  only 
proper  dress  for  Italian  comedy.  See  his  sensible  critique  on  the  Italian 
comic  drama,  prefixed  to  the  late  edition  of  Alberto  Nota's  Commedie, 
Parigi,  1829. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  537 


local  idiom  of  one  of  the  extremities  of  Italy ;  an 
inconvenience  which  cannot  exist,  and  which  can 
hardly  be  appreciated  in  a  country  where  one  ac¬ 
knowledged  capital  has  settled  the  medium  of  polite 
intercourse. 

The  progress  of  the  nation  in  the  tragic  art,  until 
a  late  period,  has  been  yet  more  doubtful.  Some 
notion  may  be  formed  of  its  low  state  in  the  last 
century  from  the  circumstance  that,  when  the  play¬ 
ers  were  in  want  of  a  serious  piece,  they  could  find 
none  so  generally  acceptable  as  an  opera  of  Metas- 
tasio,  stripped  of  its  musical  accompaniments.  The 
appearance  of  Alfieri  at  this  late  season,  of  a  genius 
so  austere,  in  the  midst  of  the  voluptuous,  Sybarite 
effeminacy  of  the  period,  is  a  remarkable  phenom¬ 
enon.  It  was  as  if  the  severe  Doric  proportions  of 
a  Peestum  temple  had  been  suddenly  raised  up  amid 
the  airy  forms  of  Palladian  architecture.  The  re¬ 
served  and  impenetrable  character  of  this  man  has 
been  perfectly  laid  open  to  us  in  his  own  autobiog¬ 
raphy.  It  was  made  up  of  incongruity  and  paradox. 
To  indomitable  passions  he  joined  the  most  frigid 
exterior.  With  the  fiercest  aristocratic  nature,  he 
yet  quitted  his  native  state  that  he  might  enjoy  un¬ 
molested  the  sweets  of  liberty.  He  published  one 
philippic  against  kings,  and  another  against  the  peo¬ 
ple.  His  theoretic  love  of  freedom  was  far  from  be¬ 
ing  warmed  by  the  genuine  glow  of  patriotism.  Of 
all  his  tragedies,  he  condescended  to  derive  two  only 
from  Italian  history ;  and  when,  in  his  prefaces,  ded¬ 
ications,  or  elsewhere,  he  takes  occasion  to  notice 

Y  Y  Y 


538  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


his  countrymen,  lie  does  it  in  the  bitterness  of  irony 
and  insult. 

When  he  first  set  about  his  tragedies,  he  could 
compose  only  in  a  sort  of  French  and  Piedmontese 
patois.  He  was  unacquainted  with  any  written  dra¬ 
matic  literature,  though  he  had  witnessed  the  the¬ 
atrical  exhibitions  of  the  principal  capitals  of  Eu¬ 
rope.  He  was,  therefore,  to  form  himself  all  fresh 
upon  such  models  as  he  might  prefer.  His  haughty 
spirit  carried  him  back  to  the  trecentisti ,  especially 
to  Dante,  whose  stern  beauties  he  sedulously  endeav¬ 
oured  to  transfuse  into  his  own  style.  He  studied 
Tacitus,  moreover,  with  diligence,  and  made  three 
entire  translations  of  Sallust.  He  was  greatly  afraid 
of  falling  into  the  cantilena  of  Metastasio,  and  sought 
to  avoid  this  by  sudden  abruptions  of  language,  by 
an  eccentric  use  of  the  articles  and  pronouns,  by 
dislocating  the  usual  structure  of  verse,  and  by  dis¬ 
tributing  the  emphatic  words  with  exclusive  refer¬ 
ence  to  the  sense** 

This  unprecedented  manner  brought  upon  Alfred 
a  host  of  critics,  and  he  was  compelled,  in  a  subse¬ 
quent  edition,  to  soften  down  its  most  offensive  as¬ 
perities.  He  imputes  to  himself  as  many  different 
styles  of  composition  as  distinguish  the  works  of 
Raphael,  and  it  is  pretty  evident  that  he  considers 
the  last  as  near  perfection  as  he  could  well  hope  to 
attain.  It  is,  indeed,  a  noble  style  :  with  the  occa¬ 
sional  turbulence  of  a  mighty  rapid,  it  has  all  its  ful- 

*  See  a  summary  of  these  peculiarities  in  Casalbigi’s  Letter,  prefixed 
to  the  late  editions  of  Alfieri’s  tragedies. 


I 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  539 


ness  and  magnificent  flow ;  and  it  shows  how  utter¬ 
ly  impossible  it  is,  by  any  effort  of  art,  to  repress  the 
natural  melody  of  the  Tuscan. 

Alfieri  effected  a  still  more  important  revolution 
in  the  intellectual  character  of  the  drama,  arousing 
it  from  the  lethargy  into  which  it  had  fallen,  and 
making  it  the  vehicle  of  generous  and  heroic  senti¬ 
ment.  He  forced  his  pieces  sometimes,  it  is  true, 
by  violent  contrast,  but  he  brought  out  his  characters 
with  a  fulness  of  relief,  and  exhibited  a  dexterous 
combat  of  passion,  that  may  not  unfrequently  remind 
us  of  Shakspeare.  He  dismissed  all  supernumera¬ 
ries  from  his  plays,  and  put  into  action  what  his 
predecessors  had  coldly  narrated.  He  dispensed, 
moreover,  with  the  curious  coincidences,  marvellous 
surprises,  and  all  the  bei  colpi  di  scena  so  familiar  in 
the  plays  of  Metastasio.  He  disdained  even  the  po¬ 
etical  aid  of  imagery,  relying  wholly  for  effect  on  the 
dignity  of  his  sentiments,  and  the  imposing  charac¬ 
ter  of  his  agents. 

Alfieri  has  been  thought  to  have  made  a  nearer 
approach  to  the  Greek  tragedy  than  any  of  the  mod¬ 
erns.  He,  indeed,  disclaims  the  imitation  of  any 
foreign  model,  and  he  did  not  learn  the  Greek  till 
late  in  life ;  but  the  drama  of  his  own  nation  had 
always  been  servilely  accommodated  to  the  rules  of 
the  ancients,  and  he  himself  had  rigorously  adhered 
to  the  same  code.  His  severe  genius,  too,  wears 
somewhat  of  the  aspect  of  that  of  the  father  of  Gre¬ 
cian  tragedy,  with  which  it  has  been  repeatedly 
compared ;  but  any  apparent  resemblance  in  their 


040  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

compositions  vanishes  on  a  closer  inspection.  The 
assassination  of  Agamemnon,  for  example,  forms  the 
subject  of  a  tragedy  with  both  these  writers ;  but  on 
what  different  principles  is  it  conducted  by  each  ! 
The  larger  proportion  of  the  play  of  iEschylus  is 
taken  up  with  the  melancholy  monologues  of  Cas¬ 
sandra  and  the  chorus,  which,  boding  the  coming 
disasters  of  the  house  of  Atreus,  or  mourning  over 
the  destiny  of  man,  are  poured  forth  in  a  lofty  dith- 
yrambic  eloquence,  that  gives  to  the  whole  the  air 
of  a  lyrical  rather  than  a  dramatic  composition.  It 
was  this  lyrical  enthusiasm  which,  doubtless,  led 
Plutarch  to  ascribe  the  inspiration  of  AEschylus  to 
the  influence  of  the  grape.*  The  dialogue  of  the 
piece  is  of  a  most  inartificial  texture,  and  to  an  Eng¬ 
lish  audience  might  sometimes  appear  flat.  The 
action  moves  heavily,  and  the  principal,  indeed,  with 
the  exception  of  Agamemnon,  the  only  attempt  at 
character,  is  in  the  part  of  Clytemnestra,  whose  gi¬ 
gantic  stature  overshadows  the  whole  piece,  and  who 
appals  the  spectator  by  avowing  the  deed  of  assas¬ 
sination  with  the  same  ferocity  with  which  she  had 
executed  it. 

Alfleri,  on  the  other  hand,  refuses  the  subsidiary 
aids  of  poetical  imagery.  He  expressly  condemns, 
in  his  criticisms,  a  confounding  of  the  lyric  and  the 
dramatic  styles.  He  elaborated  his  dialogue  with 
the  nicest  art,  and  with  exclusive  reference  to  the 

*  Sympos.  LVII.,  Prob.  10.  In  the  same  spirit,  a  critic  of  a  more  pol¬ 
ished  age  has  denounced  Shakspeare’s  Hamlet  as  the  work  of  a  drunken 
savage  !  See  Voltaire’s  Dissertation  sur  la  Tragedie,  &c.,  addressed  to 
Cardinal  Querini. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  541 

final  catastrophe.  Scence  non  levis  artifex.  His 
principal  aim  is  to  exhibit  the  collision  of  passions. 
The  conflicts  between  passion  and  principle  in  the 
bosom  of  Clytemnestra,  whom  he  has  made  a  sub¬ 
ordinate  agent,  furnish  him  with  his  most  powerful 
scenes.  He  has  portrayed  the  Iago-like  features  of 
iEgisthus  in  the  darkest  colours  of  Italian  ven¬ 
geance.  The  noble  nature  of  Agamemnon  stands 
more  fully  developed  than  in  the  Greek,  and  the 
sweet  character  of  Electra  is  all  his  own.  The  as¬ 
sassination  of  the  king  of  men  in  his  bed,  at  the 
lonely  hour  of  midnight,  must  forcibly  remind  the 
English  reader  of  the  similar  scene  in  Macbeth  ;  but, 
though  finely  conceived,  it  is  far  inferior  to  the  latter 
in  those  fearful  poetical  accompaniments  which  give 
such  an  air  of  breathless  horror  to  the  story.  In 
solemn,  mysterious  imaginings,  who  indeed  can 
equal  Shakspeare  1  He  is  the  only  modern  poet 
who  has  succeeded  in  introducing  the  dim  form  of 
an  apparition  on  the  stage  with  any  tolerable  effect. 
Yet  Voltaire  accuses  him  of  mistaking  the  horrible 
for  the  terrible.  When  Voltaire  had  occasion  to 
raise  a  ghost  upon  the  French  stage  (a  ticklish  ex¬ 
periment),  he  made  him  so  amiable  in  his  aspect 
that  Queen  Semiramis  politely  desires  leave  to 
“  throw  herself  at  his  feet  and  to  embrace  them/’* 

It  has  been  a  matter  of  debate  whether  Italian 
tragedy,  as  reformed  by  Alfieri,  is  an  improvement 
on  the  French.  Both  are  conducted  on  the  same 
general  principles.  A.  W.  Schlegel,  a  competent 


*  Semiramis,  acte  iii.,  s.  6. 


542  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

critic  whenever  his  own  prejudices  are  not  involved, 
decides  in  favour  of  the  French.  We  must  confess 
ourselves  inclined  to  a  different  opinion.  The  three 
master-spirits  in  French  tragedy  seem  to  have  con¬ 
tained  within  themselves  all  the  elements  of  dramat¬ 
ic  creation,  yet  their  best  performances  have  some¬ 
thing  tame  and  unsatisfactory  in  them.  We  see  the 
influence  of  that  fine-spun  web  of  criticism  which 
in  France  has  bound  the  wing  of  genius  to  the 
earth,  and  which  no  one  has  been  hardy  enough  to 
burst  asunder.  Corneille,  after  a  severe  lesson,  sub¬ 
mitted  to  it,  though  with  an  ill  grace.  The  flexible 
character  of  Racine  moved  under  it  with  more  free¬ 
dom,  but  he  was  of  too  timid  a  temper  to  attempt  to 
contravene  established  prejudices.  His  reply  to  one 
who  censured  him  for  making  Hippolyte  in  love,  in 
his  Phedre,  is  well  known  :  “  What  would  our  pe- 
lits-maitres  have  said  had  I  omitted  it?”  Voltaire, 
although  possessed  of  a  more  enterprising  and  revo¬ 
lutionary  spirit,  left  the  essential  principles  of  the 
drama  as  he  found  them.  His  multifarious  criticisms 
exhibit  a  perpetual  paradox.  His  general  principles 
are  ever  at  variance  with  their  particular  application. 
No  one  lauds  more  highly  the  scientific  system  of 
his  countrymen ;  witness  his  numerous  dramatic 
prefaces,  dedications,  and  articles  in  the  encyclope¬ 
dia.  He  even  refines  upon  it  with  hypercritical 
acumen,  as  in  his  commentaries  on  Corneille.  But 
when  he  feels  its  tyrannical  pressure  on  himself,  he 
is  sure  to  wince ;  see,  for  example,  his  lamentably 
protest  in  his  Preface  to  Brutus. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  543 


Alfieri  acknowledged  the  paramount  authority  of 
the  ancients  equally  with  the  French  dramatic  wri¬ 
ters.  He  has  but  thrice  violated  the  unity  of  place, 
and  very  rarely  that  of  time ;  but,  with  all  his  def¬ 
erence  for  antiquity,  the  Italian  poet  has  raised  him¬ 
self  far  above  the  narrow  code  of  French  criticism. 
He  has  relieved  tragedy  from  that  eternal  chime  of 
love-sick  damsels,  so  indispensable  in  a  French 
piece,  that,  as  Voltaire  informs  us,  out  of  four  hun¬ 
dred  which  had  appeared  before  his  time,  there  were 
not  more  than  twelve  which  did  not  turn  upon  love. 
He  substituted  in  its  place  a  more  pure  and  exalted 
sentiment.  It  will  be  difficult  to  find,  even  in  Ra¬ 
cine,  such  beautiful  personifications  of  female  loveli¬ 
ness  as  his  Electra  and  Micol,  to  name  no  others. 
He  has,  moreover,  dispensed  with  the  confidantes , 
those  insipid  shadows  that  so  invariably  walk  the 
round  of  the  French  stage.  Instead  of  insulated  ax¬ 
ioms,  and  long,  rhetorical  pleadings,  he  has  introdu¬ 
ced  a  brisk,  moving  dialogue  ;  and  instead  of  the 
ceremonious  breeding,  the  perruque  and  chapeau 
horde  of  Louis  XlV.th’s  court,  his  personages,  to 
borrow  an  allusion  from  a  sister  art,  are  sculptured 
with  the  bold,  natural  freedom  which  distinguishes 
the  school  of  Michael  Angelo. 

It  is  true  that  they  are  apt  to  show  too  much  of 
the  same  fierce  and  sarcastic  temper,  too  much  of  a 
family  likeness  with  himself  and  with  one  another; 
that  he  sometimes  mistakes  passion  for  poetry ;  that 
he  has  left  this  last  too  naked  of  imagery  and  rhe¬ 
torical  ornament;  that  he  is  sometimes  stilted  when 


544  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

lie  would  be  dignified ;  and  that  his  affected  energy 
is  too  often  carried  into  mere  muscular  contortions. 
His  system  has,  indeed,  the  appearance  of  an  aspi¬ 
ration  after  some  ideal  standard  of  excellence  which 
he  could  not  wholly  attain.  It  is  sufficient  proof  of 
his  power,  however,  that  he  succeeded  in  establish¬ 
ing  it,  in  direct  opposition  to  the  ancient  taste  of 
his  countrymen,  to  their  love  of  poetic  imagery,  of 
verbal  melody,  and  voluptuousness  of  sentiment.  It 
is  the  triumph  of  genius  over  the  prejudices,  and 
even  the  constitutional  feelings  of  a  nation. 

We  have  dwelt  thus  long  on  Alfieri,  because,  like 
Dante,  he  seems  himself  to  constitute  a  separate  de¬ 
partment  in  Italian  literature.  It  is  singular  that  the 
two  poets  who  present  the  earliest  and  the  latest 
models  of  surpassing  excellence  in  this  literature 
should  bear  so  few  of  its  usual  characteristics.  Al- 
fieri’s  example  has  effected  a  decided  revolution  in 
the  theatrical  taste  of  his  countrymen.  It  has  called 
forth  the  efforts  of  some  of  their  most  gifted  minds. 
Monti,  perhaps  the  most  eminent  of  this  school,  sur¬ 
passes  him  in  the  graces  of  an  easy  and  brilliant  el¬ 
ocution,  but  falls  far  below  him  in  energy  of  concep¬ 
tion  and  character.  The  stoical  system  of  Alfieri 
would  seem,  indeed,  better  adapted  to  his  own  pecu¬ 
liar  temperament  than  to  that  of  his  nation  ;  and  the 
successful  experiment  of  Manzoni  in  discarding  the 
unities,  and  otherwise  relaxing  the  unnatural  rigidity 
of  this  system,  would  appear  to  be  much  better  suit¬ 
ed  to  the  popular  taste  as  well  as  talent. 

Our  limits,  necessarily  far  too  scanty  for  our  sub- 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  545 


ject,  will  not  allow  us  to  go  into  the  Opera  and  the 
Pastoral  Drama,  two  beautiful  divisions  in  this  de¬ 
partment  of  Italian  letters.  It  is  singular  that  the 
former,  notwithstanding  the  natural  sensibility  of  the 
Italians  to  harmony,  and  the  melody  of  their  lan¬ 
guage,  which  almost  sets  itself  to  music  as  it  is  spo¬ 
ken,  should  have  been  so  late  in  coming  to  its  per¬ 
fection  under  Metastasio.  Nothing  can  be  more 
unfair  than  to  judge  of  this  author,  or,  indeed,  of 
any  composer  of  operas,  by  the  effect  produced  on 
us  in  the  closet.  Their  pieces  are  intended  to  be 
exhibited,  not  read.  The  sentimental  ariettes  of  the 
heroes,  the  romantic  bombast  of  the  heroines,  the 
racks,  ropes,  poisoned  daggers,  and  other  fee-faw-fum 
of  a  nursery  tale,  so  plentifully  besprinkled  over 
them,  have  certainly,  in  the  closet,  a  very  fade  and 
ridiculous  aspect ;  but  an  opera  should  be  consider¬ 
ed  as  an  appeal  to  the  senses,  by  means  of  the  illu 
sions  of  music,  dancing,  and  decorations.  The  po¬ 
etry,  wit,  sentiment,  intrigue,  are  mere  accessories, 
and  of  value  only  as  they  may  serve  to  promote  this 
illusion.  Hence  the  necessity  of  love — love,  the 
vivifying  principle  of  the  opera,  the  only  passion  in 
perfect  accordance  with  its  voluptuous  movements. 
Hence  the  propriety  of  exhibiting  character  in  ex¬ 
aggerated  colour  of  light  and  shadow,  the  chiar  os- 
curo  of  poetry,  as  the  imagination  is  most  forcibly 
affected  by  powerful  contrast.  Yet  this  has  been 
often  condemned  in  Metastasio.  On  the  above 
principle,  too,  the  seasonable  disclosures,  miraculous 
escapes,  and  all  the  other  magical  apparatus  before 

Z  z  z 


546  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

alluded  to,  may  be  defended.  The  mind  of  the 
spectator,  highly  stimulated  through  the  medium  of 
the  senses,  requires  a  corresponding  extravagance,  if 
we  may  so  say,  in  the  creations  of  the  poet.  In  this 
state,  a  veracious  copy  of  nature  would  fall  flat  and 
powerless ;  to  reach  the  heart,  it  must  be  raised  into 
gigantic  proportions,  and  adorned  with  a  brighter 
flush  of  colouring  than  is  to  be  found  in  real  life. 
As  a  work  of  art,  then,  but  not  as  a  purely  intellect¬ 
ual  exhibition,  we  may  criticise  the  opera,  and,  in 
this  view  of  it,  the  peculiarities  so  often  condemned 
in  the  artist  may  be,  perhaps,  sufficiently  justified. 

The  Pastoral  Drama,  that  attempt  to  shadow 
forth  the  beautiful  absurdities  of  a  golden  age,  claims 
to  be  invented  by  the  Italians.  It  was  carried  to  its 
ultimate  perfection  in  two  of  its  earliest  specimens, 
the  poems  of  Tasso  and  Guarini.  Both  these  wri¬ 
ters  have  adorned  their  subject  with  the  highest 
charms  of  versification  and  imagery.  With  Tasso 
all  this  seems  to  proceed  spontaneously  from  the 
heart,  while  Guarini’s  Pastor  Fido,  on  the  other 
hand,  has  the  appearance  of  being  elaborated  with 
the  nicest  preparation.  It  may,  in  truth,  be  regard¬ 
ed  as  the  solitary  monument  of  his  genius,  and  as 
such  he  seems  to  have  been  desirous  to  concentrate 
within  it  every  possible  variety  of  excellence.  Du¬ 
ring  his  whole  life  he  was  employed  in  retouching 
and  enriching  it  with  new  beauties.  This  great  va¬ 
riety  and  finish  of  details  somewhat  impair  its  unity, 
and  give  it  too  much  the  appearance  of  a  curious 
collection  of  specimens.  Yet  there  are  those,  and 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  547 


very  competent  critics,  too,  who  prefer  the  splendid 
patchwork  of  Guarini  to  the  sweet,  unsolicited  beau¬ 
ties  of  his  rival.  Dr.  Johnson  has  condemned  both 
the  Aminta  and  Pastor  Fido  as  “  trifles  easilv  imi- 
tated  and  unworthy  of  imitation.”  The  Italians 
have  not  found  them  so.  Out  of  some  hundred 
specimens  cited  by  Serassi,  only  three  or  four  are 
deemed  by  him  worthy  of  notice.  An  English  critic 
should  have  shown  more  charity  for  a  kind  of  com¬ 
position  that  has  given  rise  to  some  of  the  most  ex¬ 
quisite  creations  of  Fletcher  and  Milton. 

We  have  now  reviewed  the  most  important 
branches  of  the  ornamental  literature  of  the  Italians. 
We  omit  some  others,  less  conspicuous,  or  not  es¬ 
sentially  differing  in  their  characteristics  from  sim¬ 
ilar  departments  in  the  literatures  of  other  European 
nations.  An  exception  may  perhaps  be  made  in 
favour  of  satirical  writing,  which,  with  the  Italians, 
assumes  a  peculiar  form,  and  one  quite  indicative  of 
the  national  genius.  Satire,  in  one  shape  or  anoth¬ 
er,  has  been  a  great  favourite  with  them,  from  Ari¬ 
osto,  or,  indeed,  we  may  say  Dante,  to  the  present 
time.  It  is,  for  the  most  part,  of  a  light,  vivacious 
character,  rather  playful  than  pointed.  Their  crit¬ 
ics,  with  their  usual  precision,  have  subdivided  it 
into  a  great  variety  of  classes,  among  which  the  Ber- 
nesque  is  the  most  original.  This  epithet,  derived 
not,  as  some  have  supposed,  from  the  rifacbnento , 
but  from  the  Capitoli  of  Berni,  designates  a  style  of 
writing  compounded  of  the  beautiful  and  the  bur¬ 
lesque,  of  which  it  is  nearly  impossible  to  convey  an 


548  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

adequate  notion,  either  by  translation  or  description, 
in  a  foreign  language.  Even  so  mature  a  scholar  as 
Mr.  Roscoe  lias  failed  to  do  this,  when,  in  one  of 
his  histories,  he  compares  this  manner  to  that  of 
Peter  Pindar,  and  in  the  other  to  that  of  Sterne. 
But  the  Italian  has  neither  the  coarse  diction  of  the 
former  nor  the  sentiment  of  the  latter.  It  is  gener¬ 
ally  occupied  with  some  frivolous  topic,  to  which  it 
ascribes  the  most  extravagant  properties,  descanting 
on  it  through  whole  pages  of  innocent  irony,  and 
clothing  the  most  vulgar  and  oftentimes  obscene 
ideas  in  the  polished  phrase  or  idiomatic  graces  of 
expression  that  never  fail  to  disarm  an  Italian  critic. 
A  foreigner,  however,  not  so  sensible  to  the  seduc¬ 
tions  of  style,  will  scarcely  see  in  it  anything  more 
than  a  puerile  debauch  of  fancy. 

Historians  are  fond  of  distributing  the  literature 
of  Italy  into  masses,  chronologically  arranged  in  suc¬ 
cessive  centuries.  The  successive  revolutions  in 
this  literature  justify  the  division  to  a  degree  un¬ 
known  in  that  of  any  other  country,  and  a  brief  il¬ 
lustration  of  it  may  throw  some  additional  light  on 
our  subject. 

Thus  the  fourteenth  century,  the  age  of  the  tre- 
centisti ,  as  it  is  called,  the  age  of  Dante,  Petrarch, 
and  Boccaccio,  is  the  period  of  high  and  original  in¬ 
vention.  These  three  great  writers,  who  are  alone 
capable  of  attracting  our  attention  at  this  distance 
of  time,  were  citizens  of  a  free  state,  and  were  early 
formed  to  the  contemplation  and  practice  of  public 
virtue.  Hence  their  works  manifest  an  independ- 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  549 


ence  and  a  generous  self-confidence  that  we  seek  in 
vain  in  the  productions  of  a  later  period,  forced  in 
the  artificial  atmosphere  of  a  court.  Their  writings 
are  marked,  moreover,  by  a  depth  of  reflection  not 
to  be  discerned  in  the  poets  of  a  similar  period  of 
antiquity,  the  pioneers  of  the  civilization  of  their 
times.  The  human  mind  was  then  in  its  infancy; 
but  in  the  fourteenth  century  it  seemed  to  awake 
from  the  slumber  of  ages,  with  powers  newly  invig¬ 
orated,  and  a  memory  stored  with  the  accumulated 
wisdom  of  the  past.  Compare,  for  example,  the  Di¬ 
vine  Comedy  with  the  poems  of  Homer  and  He¬ 
siod,  and  observe  how  much  superior  to  these  latter 
writers  is  the  Italian  in  moral  and  intellectual  sci¬ 
ence,  as  well  as  in  those  higher  speculations  which 
relate  to  our  ultimate  destiny.*  The  rhetorical 
beauties  of  the  great  works  of  the  fourteenth  cen¬ 
tury  have  equally  contributed  to  their  permanent 
popularity  and  influence.  While  the  early  produc¬ 
tions  of  other  countries,  the  poems  of  the  Niebelun- 
gen,  of  the  Cid,  of  the  Norman  trouveurs ,  and  those 
of  Chaucer,  even,  have  passed,  in  consequence  of 
their  colloquial  barbarisms,  into  a  certain  degree  of 
oblivion,  the  writings  of  the  trecentisti  are  still  re¬ 
vered  as  the  models  of  purity  and  elegance,  to  be 
forever  imitated,  though  never  equalled. 

The  following  age  exhibits  the  reverse  of  all  this. 
It  was  as  remarkable  for  the  general  diffusion  of 

*  Hesiod,  it  is  true,  has  digested  a  compact  body  of  ethics,  wonderfully 
mature  for  the  age  in  which  he  wrote  ;  but  the  best  of  it  is  disfigured 
with  those  childish  superstitions  which  betray  the  twilight  of  civilization. 
See,  in  particular,  the  concluding  portion  of  his  Works  and  Days. 


550  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

learning  as  the  preceding  had  been  for  the  concen¬ 
tration  of  talent.  The  Italian,  which  had  been  so 
successfully  cultivated,  came  to  be  universally  neg¬ 
lected  for  the  ancient  languages.  It  would  seem 
as  if  the  soil,  exhausted  by  too  abundant  harvests, 
must  lie  fallow  another  century  before  it  could  be 
capable  of  reproduction.  The  scholars  of  that  day 
disdained  any  other  than  the  Latin  tongue  for  the 
medium  of  their  publications,  or  even  of  their  private 
epistolary  correspondence.  They  thought,  with 
Waller,  that 

“  Those  who  lasting  marble  seek, 

Must  carve  in  Latin  or  in  Greek.” 

But  the  marble  has  crumbled  into  dust,  while  the 
natural  beauties  of  their  predecessors  are  still  green 
in  the  memory  of  their  countrymen.  To  make  use 
of  a  simile  which  Dr.  Young  applied  to  Ben  Jonson, 
they  “  pulled  down,  like  Samson,  the  temple  of  an¬ 
tiquity  on  their  shoulders,  and  buried  themselves  un¬ 
der  its  ruins.” 

But  let  us  not  err  by  despising  these  men  as  a 
race  of  unprofitable  pedants.  They  lived  on  the 
theatre  of  ancient  art,  in  an  age  when  new  discov¬ 
eries  were  daily  making  of  the  long-lost  monuments 
of  intellectual  and  material  beauty,  and  it  is  no  won¬ 
der  that,  dazzled  with  the  contemplation  of  these 
objects,  they  should  have  been  blind  to  the  modest 
merits  of  their  contemporaries.  We  should  be  grate¬ 
ful  to  men  whose  indefatigable  labours  preserved  for 
us  the  perishable  remains  of  classic  literature,  and 
who  thus  opened  a  free  and  familiar  converse  with 


I 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  551 

the  great  minds  of  antiquity;  and  we  may  justly  feel 
some  degree  of  reverence  for  the  enthusiasm  of  an 
age  in  which  the  scholar  was  willing  to  exchange 
his  learned  leisure  for  painful  and  perilous  pilgrim¬ 
ages,  when  the  merchant  was  content  to  barter  his 
rich  freights  for  a  few  mouldering,  worm-eaten  folios, 
and  when  the  present  of  a  single  manuscript  was 
deemed  of  sufficient  value  to  heal  the  dissensions  of 
two  rival  states.  Such  was  the  fifteenth  century  in 
Italy ;  and  Tiraboschi,  warming  as  he  approaches 
it,  in  his  preface  to  the  sixth  volume  of  his  history, 
has  accordingly  invested  it  with  more  than  his  usual 
blaze  of  panegyric. 

The  genius  of  the  Italians,  however,  was  sorely 
fettered  by  their  adoption  of  an  ancient  idiom,  and, 
like  Tasso’s  Erminia,  when  her  delicate  form  was 
enclosed  in  the  iron  mail  of  the  warrior,  lost  its  elas¬ 
ticity  and  grace.  But  at  the  close  of  the  century 
the  Italian  muse  was  destined  to  regain  her  natural 
freedom  in  the  court  of  Lorenzo  de’  Medici.  His 
own  compositions,  especially,  are  distinguished  by  a 
romantic  sweetness,  and  his  light,  popular  pieces — 
Carnascialeschi,  Contadineschi — so  abundantly  im¬ 
itated  since,  have  a  buoyant,  exhilarating  air,  wholly 
unlike  the  pedantic  tone  of  his  age.  Under  these 
new  auspices,  however,  the  Italian  received  a  very 
different  complexion  from  that  which  had  been  im¬ 
parted  to  it  by  the  hand  of  Dante. 

The  sixteenth  century  is  the  healthful,  the  Au¬ 
gustan  age  of  Italian  letters.  The  conflicting  prin¬ 
ciples  of  an  ancient  and  a  modern  school  are,  how- 


552  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ever,  to  be  traced  throughout  almost  the  whole 
course  of  it.  A  curious  passage  from  Varchi,  who 
flourished  about  the  middle  of  this  century,  informs 
us  that,  when  he  was  at  school,  it  was  the  custom 
of  the  instructers  to  interdict  to  their  pupils  the 
study  of  any  vernacular  writer,  even  Dante  and  Pe¬ 
trarch.*  Hence  the  Latin  came  to  he  cultivated 
almost  equally  with  the  Italian,  and  both,  singularly 
enough,  attained  simultaneously  their  full  develop¬ 
ment. 

There  are  few  phrases  more  inaccurately  applied 
than  that  of  the  Age  of  Leo  X.,  to  whose  brief  pon¬ 
tificate  we  are  accustomed  to  refer  most  of  the  mag¬ 
nificent  creations  of  genius  scattered  over  the  six¬ 
teenth  century,  although  very  few,  even  of  those 
produced  in  his  own  reign,  can  be  imputed  to  his 
influence.  The  nature  of  this  influence  in  regard  to 
Italian  letters  may  even  admit  of  question.  His 
early  taste  led  him  to  give  an  almost  exclusive  at¬ 
tention  to  the  ancient  classics.  The  great  poets  of 
that  century,  Ariosto,  Sanazzaro,  the  Tassos,  Rucel- 
lai,  Guarini,  and  the  rest,  produced  their  immortal 
works  far  from  Leo’s  court.  Even  Bembo,  the  or¬ 
acle  of  his  day,  retired  in  disgust  from  his  patron, 
and  composed  his  principal  writings  in  his  retreat. 
Ariosto,  his  ancient  friend,  he  coldly  neglected, f 
while  he  pensioned  the  infamous  Aretin.  He  sur¬ 
rounded  his  table  with  buffoon  literati  and  parasit- 

*  Ercolano,  ques.  VIII. 

f  Roscoe  attempts  to  explain  away  this  conduct  of  Leo,  but  the  satires 
of  the  poet  furnish  a  bitter  commentary  upon  it,  not  to  be  misunderstood. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  553 

ical  poets,  who  amused  him  with  feats  of  improvisa¬ 
tion,  gluttony,  and  intemperance,  some  of  whom, 
after  expending  on  them  his  convivial  wit,  he  turn¬ 
ed  over  to  public  derision,  and  most  of  whom,  de¬ 
bauched  in  morals  and  constitution,  were  abandon¬ 
ed,  under  his  austere  successor,  to  infamy  and  death. 
He  collected  about  him  such  court-flies  as  Berni 
and  Molza;  but,  as  if  the  papal  atmosphere  were 
fatal  to  high  continued  effort,  even  Berni,  like  Tris- 
sino  and  Rucellai,  could  find  no  leisure  for  his  more 
elaborate  performance  till  after  his  patron’s  death. 
He  magnificently  recompensed  his  musical  retainers, 
making  one  an  archbishop,  another  an  archdeacon ; 
but  what  did  he  do  for  his  countryman  Machiavelli, 
the  philosopher  of  his  age  He  hunted,  and  hawk¬ 
ed,  and  caroused;  everything  was  a  jest;  and  while 
the  nations  of  Europe  stood  aghast  at  the  growing 
heresy  of  Luther,  the  merry  pontiff  and  his  minis¬ 
ters  found  strange  matter  of  mirth  in  witnessing  the 
representation  of  comedies  that  exposed  the  impu¬ 
dent  mummeries  of  priestcraft.  With  such  an  ex¬ 
ample,  and  under  such  an  influence,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  nothing  better  should  have  been  produced  than 
burlesque  satire,  licentious  farces,  and  frivolous  im¬ 
promptus.  Contrast  all  this  with  the  elegant  recre¬ 
ations  of  the  little  court  of  Urbino,  as  described  in 
the  Cortegiano  ;  or  compare  the  whole  result  on 
Italian  letters  of  the  so  much  vaunted  patronage  of 

*  Machiavelli,  after  having  suffered  torture  on  account  of  a  suspected 
conspiracy  against  the  Medici,  in  which  his  participation  was  never  pro¬ 
ved,  was  allowed  to  linger  out  his  days  in  poverty  and  disgrace. 

4  A 


554  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

this  luxurious  pontiff  with  the  splendid  achievements 
of  the  petty  state  of  Este  alone,  during  the  first  half 
of  this  century,  and  it  will  appear  that  there  are  few 
misnomers  which  convey  grosser  misconceptions 
than  that  of  the  age  of  Leo  X. 

The  seventeenth  century  ( seicento )  is  one  of  hu¬ 
miliation  in  the  literary  annals  of  Italy  ;  one  in 
which  the  Muse,  like  some  dilapidated  beauty,  en¬ 
deavoured  to  supply  the  loss  of  natural  charms  by 
all  the  aids  of  coquetry  and  meretricious  ornament. 
It  is  the  prodigal  use  of  “  these  false  brilliants/’  as 
Boileau  terms  them,  in  some  of  their  best  writers, 
which  has  brought  among  foreigners  an  undeserved 
discredit  on  the  whole  body  of  Italian  letters,  and 
which  has  made  the  condemned  age  of  the  seicentisti 
a  by-word  of  reproach  even  with  their  own  country¬ 
men.  The  principles  of  a  corrupt  taste  are,  how¬ 
ever,  to  be  discerned  at  an  earlier  period,  in  the  wri¬ 
tings  of  Tasso  especially,  and  still  more  of  Guarini ; 
but  it  was  reserved  for  Marini  to  reduce  them  into 
a  system,  and  by  his  popularity  and  foreign  resi¬ 
dence  to  diffuse  the  infection  among  the  other  na¬ 
tions  of  Europe.  To  this  source,  therefore,  most  of 
these  nations  have  agreed  to  refer  the  impurities 
which,  at  one  time  or  another,  have  disfigured  their 
literatures.  Thus  the  Spaniard  Lampillas  has  mus¬ 
tered  an  array  of  seven  volumes  to  prove  the  charge 
of  original  corruption  on  the  Italians,  though  Marini 
openly  affected  to  have  formed  himself  upon  a  Span¬ 
ish  model.*  In  like  manner,  La  Harpe  imputes  to 

*  Obras  suelt.  de  Lope  de  Vega,  tom.  xxi.,  p.  17. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  555 


them  the  sins  of  Jodelle  and  the  contemporary  wits, 
though  these  last  preceded,  by  some  years,  the  liter¬ 
ary  existence  of  Marini ;  and  the  vices  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish  metaphysical  school  have  been  expressly  refer¬ 
red,  by  Dr.  Johnson,  to  Marini  and  his  followers. 

A  nearer  inspection,  however,  might  justify  the 
opinion  that  these  various  affectations  bear  too  much 
of  the  physiognomy  of  the  respective  nations  in 
which  they  are  found,  and  are  capable  of  being  tra¬ 
ced  to  too  high  a  source  in  each,  to  be  thus  exclu¬ 
sively  imputed  to  the  Italians.  Thus  the  elements 
of  the  cultismo  of  the  Spaniards,  that  compound  of 
flat  pedantry  and  Oriental  hyperbole,  so  different 
from  the  fine  concetti  of  the  Italian,  are  to  be  traced 
through  some  of  their  most  eminent  writers  up  to 
the  fugitive  pieces  of  the  fifteenth  century,  as  col¬ 
lected  in  their  Cancioneros ;  and,  in  like  manner, 
the  elements  of  the  metaphysical  jargon  of  Cowley, 
whose  intellectual  combinations  and  far-fetched 
analogies  show  too  painful  a  research  after  wit  for 
the  Italian  taste,  may  be  traced  in  England  through 
Donne  and  Ben  Jonson,  to  say  nothing  of  the  “  un¬ 
paralleled  John  Lillie,”  up  to  the  veteran  versifiers 
of  the  fifteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries.  Thus, 
also,  some  features  of  the  style  precieux  of  the  Hotel 
de  Rambouillet,  so  often  lashed  by  Boileau  and 
laughed  at  by  Moliere,  may  be  imputed  to  the  ma¬ 
lign  influence  of  the  constellation  of  pedants,  cele¬ 
brated  in  France  under  the  title  of  Pleiades,  in  the 
sixteenth  century. 

The  Greek  is  the  only  literature  which,  from  the 


556  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

first,  seems  to  have  maintained  a  sound  and  health  fid 
state.  In  every  other,  the  barbaric  love  of  ornament, 
so  discernible  even  in  the  best  of  the  early  writers, 
has  been  chastised  only  by  long  and  assiduous  crit¬ 
icism  ;  but  the  principle  of  corruption  still  remains, 
and  the  season  of  perfect  ripeness  seems  to  be  only 
that  of  the  commencement  of  decay.  Thus  it  was 
in  Italy,  in  the  perverted  age  of  the  seicentisti,  an 
age  yet  warm  with  the  productions  of  an  Ariosto 
and  a  Tasso. 

The  literature  of  the  Italians  assumed  in  the  last 
century  a  new  and  highly  improved  aspect.  With 
less  than  its  usual  brilliancy  of  imagination,  it  dis¬ 
played  an  intensity,  and,  under  the  circumstances  in 
which  it  has  been  produced,  we  may  add,  intrepid¬ 
ity  of  thought  quite  worthy  of  the  great  spirits  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  and  a  freedom  and  nature  in 
its  descriptions  altogether  opposed  to  the  heartless 
affectations  of  the  seventeenth.  The  prejudicial  in¬ 
fluence  of  their  neighbours  threatened  at  one  time, 
indeed,  to  precipitate  the  language  into  a  French 
macheronico ;  but  a  counter-current,  equally  exclu¬ 
sive,  in  favour  of  the  trecentisti ,  contributed  to  check 
the  innovation,  and  to  carry  them  back  to  the  an¬ 
cient  models  of  purity  and  vigour.  The  most  emi¬ 
nent  writers  of  this  period  seem  to  have  formed 
themselves  on  Dante,  in  particular,  as  studiously  as 
those  of  the  preceding  age  affected  the  more  effem¬ 
inate  graces  of  Petrarch.  Among  these,  Monti,  who, 
in  the  language  of  his  master,  may  be  truly  said  to 
have  inherited  from  him  “  Lo  hello  stile,  che  Fha 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  557 


fatto  onore,”  is  thought  most  nearly  to  resemble 
Dante  in  the  literary  execution  of  his  verses  ;  while 
Alfieri,  Parini,  and  Foscolo  approach  him  still  near¬ 
er  in  the  rugged  virtue  and  independence  of  their 
sentiments.  There  seems  to  be  a  didactic  import  in 
much  of  the  poetry  of  this  age,  too,  and  in  its  de 
scriptions  of  external  nature,  a  sober,  contemplative 
vein,  that  may  remind  us  of  writers  in  our  own  lan¬ 
guage.  Indeed,  an  English  influence  is  clearly  dis¬ 
cernible  in  some  of  the  most  eminent  poets  of  this 
period,  who  have  either  visited  Great  Britain  in  per¬ 
son,  or  made  themselves  familiar  with  its  language.* 
The  same  influence  may  be,  perhaps,  recognised  in 
the  moral  complexion  of  many  of  their  compositions, 
the  most  elegant  specimen  of  which  is  probably  Pa- 
rini’s  satire,  which  disguises  the  sarcasm  of  Cowper 
in  the  rich,  embroidered  verse  which  belongs  to  the 
Italians. 

In  looking  back  on  the  various  branches  of  liter¬ 
ature  which  we  have  been  discussing,  we  are  struck 
with  the  almost  exclusive  preference  given  to  poetry 
over  prose,  with  the  great  variety  of  beautiful  forms 
which  the  former  exhibits,  with  its  finished  versifica¬ 
tion,  its  inexhaustible  inventions,  and  a  wit  that  nev¬ 
er  tires.  But  in  all  this  admirable  mechanism  we  too 
often  feel  the  want  of  an  informing  soul,  of  a  nobler, 
or,  at  least,  some  more  practical  object  than  mere 
amusement.  Their  writers  too  rarely  seem  to  feel, 

“  Divinity  within  them,  breeding  wings 
Wherewith  to  spurn  the  earth.” 

*  Among  these  may  be  mentioned  Monti,  Pindemonte,  Cesarotti,  Maz- 
za,  Alfieri,  Pignotti,  and  Foscolo. 


558  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

They  have  gone  beyond  every  other  people  in  paint¬ 
ing  the  intoxication  of  voluptuous  passion  ;  but  how 
rarely  have  they  exhibited  it  in  its  purer  and  more 
ethereal  form  !  How  rarely  have  they  built  up 
their  dramatic  or  epic  fables  on  national  or  patriotic 
recollections !  Even  satire,  disarmed  of  its  moral 
sting,  becomes  in  their  hands  a  barren,  though  per¬ 
haps  a  brilliant  jest — the  harmless  electricity  of  a 
summer  sky. 

The  peculiar  inventions  of  a  people  best  show 
their  peculiar  genius.  The  romantic  epic  has  as¬ 
sumed  with  the  Italians  a  perfectly  original  form,  in 
which,  stripped  of  the  fond  illusions  of  chivalry,  it 
has  descended,  through  all  the  gradations  of  mirth, 
from  well-bred  raillery  to  broad  and  bald  buffoonery. 
In  the  same  merry  vein  their  various  inventions  in 
the  burlesque  style  have  been  conceived.  Whole 
cantos  of  these  puerilities  have  been  strung  together 
with  a  patience  altogether  unrivalled,  except  by  that 
of  their  indefatigable  commentators.*  Even  the 
most  austere  intellects  of  the  nation,  a  Machiavelli 
and  a  Galileo,  for  example,  have  not  disdained  to 
revel  in  this  frivolous  debauch  of  fancy,  and  may  re¬ 
mind  one  of  Michael  Angelo,  at  the  instance  of  Pi¬ 
etro  de’  Medici,  employing  his  transcendent  talents 
in  sculpturing  a  perishable  statue  of  snow  ! 

The  general  scope  of  our  vernacular  literature,  as 
contrasted  with  that  of  the  Italian,  will  set  the  pe¬ 
culiarities  of  the  latter  in  a  still  stronger  light.  In 

*  The  annotations  upon  Lippi’s  burlesque  poem  of  the  Malmantile  Rac- 
quistata  are  inferior  in  bulk  to  those  only  on  the  Divine  Comedy. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  559 


the  English,  the  drama  and  the  novel,  which  may  be 
considered  as  its  staples,  aiming  at  more  than  a  vul¬ 
gar  interest,  have  always  been  made  the  theatre  of 
a  scientific  dissection  of  character.  Instead  of  the 
romping  merriment  of  the  novelle ,  it  is  furnished  with 
those  periodical  essays  which,  in  the  form  of  apo¬ 
logue,  of  serious  disquisition  or  criticism,  convey  to 
us  lessons  of  practical  wisdom.  Its  pictures  of  ex¬ 
ternal  nature  have  been  deepened  by  a  sober  con¬ 
templation  not  familiar  to  the  mercurial  fancy  of 
the  Italians.  Its  biting  satire,  from  Pierce  Plow¬ 
man’s  Visions  to  the  Baviad  and  Mseviad  of  our  day, 
instead  of  breaking  into  vapid  jests,  has  been  sharp¬ 
ened  against  the  follies  or  vices  of  the  age,  and  the 
body  of  its  poetry,  in  general,  from  the  days  of 
“  moralle  Gower”  to  those  of  Cowper  and  Words¬ 
worth,  breathes  a  spirit  of  piety  and  unsullied  virtue. 
Even  Spenser  deemed  it  necessary  to  shroud  the 
eccentricities  of  his  Italian  imagination  in  sober  al¬ 
legory  ;  and  Milton,  while  he  adopted  in  his  Comus 
the  beautiful  and  somewhat  luxurious  form  of  the 
Aminta  and  Pastor  Fido,  animated  it  with  the  most 
devotional  sentiments. 

The  political  situation  of  Italy  may  afford  a  key 
to  some  of  the  peculiarities  of  her  literature.  Op¬ 
pressed  by  foreign  or  domestic  tyrants  for  more  than 
five  centuries,  she  has  been  condemned,  in  the  in¬ 
dignant  language  of  her  poet, 

“  Per  servir  sempre,  o  vincitrice  o  vinta.’’ 

Her  citizens,  excluded  from  the  higher  walks  of 
public  action,  have  too  often  resigned  themselves  to 


560  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

corrupt  and  effeminate  pleasure,  and  her  writers,  in¬ 
hibited  from  the  free  discussion  of  important  topics, 
have  too  frequently  contented  themselves  with  an 
impotent  play  of  fancy.  The  histories  of  Macliia- 
velli  and  of  Guicciardini  were  not  permitted  to  be 
published  entire  until  the  conclusion  of  the  last  cen¬ 
tury.  The  writings  of  Alemanni,  from  some  um¬ 
brage  given  to  the  Medici,  were  burned  by  the  hands 
of  the  common  hangman.  Marchetti’s  elegant  ver¬ 
sion  of  Lucretius  was  long  prohibited  on  the  ground 
of  its  epicurean  philosophy,  and  the  learned  labours 
of  Giannone  were  recompensed  with  exile.  Under 
such  a  government,  it  is  wonderful  that  so  many, 
rather  than  so  few  writers,  should  have  been  found 
with  intrepidity  sufficient  to  raise  the  voice  of  un¬ 
welcome  truth.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
they  should  have  produced  so  few  models  of  civil 
or  sacred  eloquence,  the  fruit  of  a  happier  and  more 
enlightened  system  ;  that  they  should  have  been  too 
exclusively  devoted  to  mere  beauties  of  form ;  have 
been  more  solicitous  about  style  than  thought ;  have 
studied  rather  to  amuse  than  to  instruct.  Hence 
the  superabundance  of  their  philological  treatises 
and  mere  verbal  criticisms,  of  their  tomes  of  com¬ 
mentaries,  with  which  they  have  illustrated  or  ob¬ 
scured  their  most  insignificant  poets,  where  a  verse 
furnishes  matter  for  a  lecture,  and  a  canzone  becomes 
the  text  for  a  volume.  This  is  no  exaggeration.* 

*  Benedetto  of  Ravenna  wrote  ten  lectures  on  the  fourth  sonnet  of 
Petrarch.  Pico  della  Mirandola  devoted  three  whole  books  to  the  illus¬ 
tration  of  a  canzone  of  his  friend  Benivieni,  and  three  Arcadians  publish- 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  561 


Hence,  too,  the  frequency  and  ferocity  of  their  lit¬ 
erary  quarrels,  into  which  the  Italians,  excluded  too 
often  from  weightier  disquisition,  enter  with  an  en¬ 
thusiasm  which  in  other  nations  can  be  roused  only 
by  the  dearest  interests  of  humanity.  The  compar¬ 
ative  merit  of  some  obscure  classic,  the  orthography 
of  some  obsolete  term,  a  simple  sonnet,  even,  has 
been  sufficient  to  throw  the  whole  community  into 
a  ferment,  in  which  the  parties  have  not  always 
confined  themselves  to  a  war  of  words. 

The  influence  of  academies  on  Italian  literature 
is  somewhat  doubtful.  They  have  probably  contrib¬ 
uted  to’  nourish  that  epicurean  sensibility  to  mere 
verbal  elegance  so  conspicuous  in  the  nation.  The 
great  variety  of  these  institutions  scattered  over  every 
remote  district  of  the  country,  the  whimsicality  of 
their  titles,  and  still  more  of  those  of  their  members, 
have  an  air  sufficiently  ridiculous.*  Some  of  them 
have  been  devoted  to  the  investigation  of  science.. 
But  a  license,  refused  to  individuals,  will  hardly  be 
conceded  to  public  associations  ;  and  the  persecution 
of  some  of  the  most  eminent  has  proved  an  effectual 
warning  to  confine  their  speculations  within  the  in¬ 
offensive  sphere  of  literary  criticism.  Hence  the  ex¬ 
uberance  of  prose  and  lezioni,  endless  dissertations 

ed  a  volume  in  defence  of  the  Tre  Sorelle  of  Petrarch  !  It  would  be  easy 
to  multiply  similar  examples  of  critical  prodigality. 

*  Take  at  hazard  some  of  the  most  familiar,  the  “  Ardent,”  the  “  Fro¬ 
zen,”  the  “  Wet,”  the  “  Dry,”  the  “  Stupid,”  the  “  Lazy.”  The  Cruscan 
takes  its  name  from  Crusca  (bran) ;  and  its  members  adopted  the  corre¬ 
sponding  epithets  of  “  brown  bread,”  “  white  bread,”  “  the  kneaded,”  &c. 
Some  of  the  Italians,  as  Lasca,  La  Bindo,  for  instance,  are  better  known 
by  their  frivolous  academic  names  than  by  their  own. 

4  B 


562  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

on  barren  rhetorical  topics;  and  those  vapid  attempts 
at  academic  wit,  which  should  never  have  trans¬ 
cended  the  bounds  of  the  Lyceum. 

It  is  not  in  such  institutions  that  the  great  intel¬ 
lectual  efforts  of  a  nation  are  displayed.  All  that 
any  academy  can  propose  to  itself  is  to  keep  alive 
the  flame  which  genius  has  kindled,  and  in  more 
than  one  instance  they  have  gone  near  to  smother  it. 
The  French  academy,  as  is  well  known,  opened  its 
career  with  its  celebrated  attack  upon  Corneille  ; 
and  the  earliest  attempt  of  the  Cruscan  was  upon 
Tasso’s  Jerusalem,  which  it  compelled  its  author  to 
remodel,  or,  in  other  words,  to  reduce,  by  the  extrac¬ 
tion  of  its  essential  spirit,  into  a  flat  and  insipid  de¬ 
coction.  Denina  has  sarcastically  intimated  that  the 
era  of  the  foundation  of  this  latter  academy  corre¬ 
sponds  exactly  with  that  of  the  commencement  of 
the  decline  of  good  taste.  More  liberal  critics  con¬ 
cede,  however,  that  this  body  has  done  much  to  pre¬ 
serve  the  integrity  of  the  tongue,  and  that  a  pure 
spirit  of  criticism  was  kept  alive  within  its  bosom 
when  it  had  become  extinct  in  almost  every  other 
part  of  Italy.*  Their  philological  labours  have,  in 
truth,  been  highly  valuable,  though  perhaps  not  so 
completely  successful  as  those  of  the  French  acad¬ 
emicians.  We  do  not  allude  to  any  capricious  prin¬ 
ciple  on  which  their  vocabulary  may  have  been  con¬ 
structed,  an  affair  of  their  own  critics  ;  but  to  the 
fact  that,  after  all,  they  have  not  been  able  to  settle 

*  See,  in  particular,  the  treatise  of  Parini,  himself  a  Lombard,  De* 
principi  delle  Belle  Lettere,  part  ii.,  cap.  v. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  563 


the  language  with  the  same  precision  and  uniformity 
with  which  it  has  been  done  in  France,  from  the 
want  of  some  great  metropolis,  like  Paris,  whose  au¬ 
thority  would  be  received  as  paramount  throughout 
the  country.  No  such  universal  deference  has  been 
paid  to  the  Cruscan  academy ;  and  the  Italian  lan¬ 
guage,  far  from  being  accurately  determined,  is  even 
too  loose  and  inexact  for  the  common  purposes  of 
business.  Perhaps  it  is  for  this  very  reason  better 
adapted  to  the  ideal  purposes  of  poetry. 

The  exquisite  mechanism  of  the  Italian  tongue, 
made  up  of  the  very  elements  of  music,  and  pictu¬ 
resque  in  its  formation  beyond  that  of  any  other  liv¬ 
ing  language,  is  undoubtedly  a  cause  of  the  exagger¬ 
ated  consequence  imputed  to  style  by  the  writers  of 
the  nation.  The  author  of  the  Dialogue  on  Orators 
points  out,  as  one  of  the  symptoms  of  depraved  elo¬ 
quence  in  Rome,  that  “  voluptuous  artificial  harmony 
of  cadence,  which  is  better  suited  to  the  purposes  of 
the  musician  or  the  dancer  than  of  the  orator.”  The 
same  vice  has  infected  Italian  prose  from  its  earliest 
models,  from  Boccaccio  and  Bembo  down  to  the 
most  ordinary  book- wright  of  the  present  day,  who 
hopes  to  disguise  his  poverty  of  thought  under  his 
melodious  redundancy  of  diction.  Hence  it  is  that 
their  numerous  Letters,  Dialogues,  and  their  speci¬ 
mens  of  written  eloquence,  are  too  often  defective 
both  in  natural  force  and  feeling.  Even  in  those 
graver  productions  which  derive  almost  their  sole 
value  from  their  facts,  they  are  apt  to  be  far  more  so¬ 
licitous  about  style  and  ingenious  turns  of  thought, 


564  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

as  one  of  their  own  critics  has  admitted,  than  either 
utility  or  sound  philosophy.* 

A  principal  cause,  after  all,  of  the  various  pecu¬ 
liarities  of  Italian  literature,  of  which  we  have  been 
speaking,  is  to  be  traced  to  that  fine  perception  of 
the  beautiful,  so  inherent  in  every  order  of  the  nation, 
whether  it  proceed  from  a  happier  physical  organi¬ 
zation,  or  from  an  early  familiarity  with  those  models 
of  ideal  beauty  by  which  they  are  everywhere  sur¬ 
rounded.  Whoever  has  visited  Italy  must  have  been 
struck  with  a  sensibility  to  elegant  pleasure,  and  a 
refinement  of  taste  in  the  very  lowest  classes,  that  in 
other  countries  belong  only  to  the  more  cultivated. 
This  is  to  be  discerned  in  the  most  trifling  particu¬ 
lars  ;  in  their  various  costume,  wdiose  picturesque  ar¬ 
rangement  seems  to  have  been  studied  from  the  mod¬ 
els  of  ancient  statuary ;  in  the  flowers  and  other  taste¬ 
ful  ornaments  with  which,  on  fete  days,  they  deco¬ 
rate  their  chapels  and  public  temples ;  in  the  eager¬ 
ness  with  which  the  peasant  and  the  artisan,  after 

i 

their  daily  toil,  resort  to  the  theatre,  the  opera,  or 
similar  intellectual  amusements,  instead  of  the  bear- 
baitings,  bull-fights,  and  drunken  orgies  so  familiar 
to  the  populace  of  other  countries  ;  and  in  the  quiet 
rapture  with  which  they  listen  for  hours,  in  the  pub¬ 
lic  squares,  to  the  strains  of  an  improvisators,  or  the 
recitations  of  a  story-teller,  without  any  other  re¬ 
freshment  than  a  glass  of  water.  Even  the  art  of 
improvisation,  carried  to  such  perfection  by  the  Ital¬ 
ians,  is  far  less  imputable  to  the  facilities  of  their 

*  Bettinelli,  Risorgira.  d’ltalia,  Introd.,  p.  14. 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS.  565 


verse  than  to  the  poetical  genius  of  the  people ;  an 
evidence  of  which  is  the  abundance  of  improvisatori 
in  Latin  in  the  sixteenth  century,  when  that  language 
came  to  be  widely  cultivated. 

It  is  time,  however,  to  conclude  our  remarks,  which 
have  already  encroached  too  liberally  on  the  pa¬ 
tience  of  our  readers.  Notwithstanding  our  sincere 
admiration,  as  generally  expressed,  for  the  beautiful 
literature  of  Italy,  we  fear  that  some  of  our  reflec¬ 
tions  may  be  unpalatable  to  a  people  who  shrink 
with  sensitive  delicacy  from  the  rude  touch  of  for¬ 
eign  criticism.  The  most  liberal  opinions  of  a  for¬ 
eigner,  it  is  true,  coming  through  so  different  a  me¬ 
dium  of  prejudice  and  taste,  must  always  present  a 
somewhat  distorted  aspect  to  the  eye  of  a  native. 
On  those  finer  shades  of  expression  which  consti¬ 
tute,  indeed,  much  of  the  value  of  poetry,  none  but  a 
native  can  pronounce  with  accuracy ;  but  on  its  in¬ 
tellectual  and  moral  character  a  foreign  critic  is  bet¬ 
ter  qualified  to  decide.  He  may  be  more  perspica¬ 
cious,  even,  than  a  native,  in  detecting  those  obli¬ 
quities  from  a  correct  standard  of  taste,  to  which  the 
latter  has  been  reconciled  by  prejudice  and  long  ex¬ 
ample,  or  which  he  may  have  learned  to  reverence 
as  beauties. 

There  must  be  so  many  exceptions,  too,  to  the 
sweeping  range  of  any  general  criticism,  that  it  will 
always  carry  with  it  a  certain  air  of  injustice.  Thus, 
while  we  object  to  the  Italians  the  diluted,  redun¬ 
dant  style  of  their  compositions,  may  they  not  refer 
us  to  their  versions  of  Tacitus  and  Perseus,  the  most 


566  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

condensed  writers  in  the  most  condensed  language 
in  the  world,  in  a  form  equally  compact  with  that 
of  the  originals  ?  May  they  not  object  to  us  Dante 
and  Alfieri,  scarcely  capable  of  translation  into  any 
modern  tongue,  in  the  same  compass,  without  a  vi¬ 
olence  to  idiom  ?  And  may  they  not  cite  the  same 
hardy  models  in  refutation  of  an  unqualified  charge 
of  effeminacy  ?  Where  shall  we  find  examples  of 
purer  and  more  exalted  sentiment  than  in  the  wri¬ 
tings  of  Petrarch  and  Tasso?  Where  of  a  more 
chastised  composition  than  in  Casa  or  Caro  ?  And 
where  more  pertinent  examples  of  a  didactic  aim 
than  in  their  numerous  poetical  treatises  on  hus¬ 
bandry,  manufactures,  and  other  useful  arts,  which 
in  other  countries  form  the  topics  of  bulky  disquisi¬ 
tions  in  prose?  This  is  all  just.  But  such  excep¬ 
tions,  however  imposing,  in  no  way  contravene  the 
general  truth  of  our  positions,  founded  on  th q  prev¬ 
alent  tone  and  characteristics  of  Italian  literature. 

Let  us  not,  however,  appear  insensible  to  the 
merits  of  a  literature,  pre-eminent  above  all  others 
for  activity  of  fancy  and  beautiful  variety  of  form,  or 
to  those  of  a  country  so  fruitful  in  interesting  recol¬ 
lections  to  the  scholar  and  the  artist ;  in  which  the 
human  mind  has  displayed  its  highest  energies  un¬ 
tired  through  the  longest  series  of  ages ;  on  which 
the  light  of  science  shed  its  parting  ray,  and  where 
it  first  broke  again  upon  the  nations ;  whose  history 
is  the  link  that  connects  the  past  with  the  present, 
the  ancient  with  the  modern,  and  whose  enterprising 
genius  enlarged  the  boundaries  of  the  Old  World 


POETRY  AND  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ITALIANS  567 


by  the  discovery  of  a  New ;  whose  scholars  opened 
to  mankind  the  intellectual  treasures  of  antiquity ; 
whose  schools  first  expounded  those  principles  of 
law  which  have  become  the  basis  of  jurisprudence 
in  most  of  the  civilized  nations  of  Europe  ;  whose 
cities  gave  the  earliest  example  of  free  institutions, 
and,  when  the  vision  of  liberty  had  passed  away, 
maintained  their  empire  over  the  mind  by  those  ad¬ 
mirable  productions  of  art  that  revive  the  bright  pe¬ 
riod  of  Grecian  glory ;  and  who,  even  now,  that  her 
palaces  are  made  desolate  and  her  vineyards  trodden 
down  under  the  foot  of  the  stranger,  retains  within 
her  bosom  all  the  fire  of  ancient  genius.  It  would 
show  a  strange  insensibility  indeed  did  we  not  sym¬ 
pathize  in  the  fortunes  of  a  nation  that  has  mani¬ 
fested,  in  such  a  variety  of  ways,  the  highest  intel¬ 
lectual  power ;  of  which  we  may  exclaim,  in  the 
language  which  a  modern  poet  has  applied  to  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  of  her  cities, 

“  O  Decus,  0  Lux 

Ausoniae,  per  quam  libera  turba  sumus, 

Per  quam  Barbaries  nobis  non  imperat,  et  Sol 
Exoriens  nostro  clarius  orbe  nitet !” 


568  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


SCOTTISH  SONG* 

JULY,  1  8  26. 

It  is  remarkable  that  poetry,  which  is  esteemed 
so  much  more  difficult  than  prose  among  cultivated 
people,  should  universally  have  been  the  form  which 
man,  in  the  primitive  stages  of  society,  has  adopted 
for  the  easier  development  of  his  ideas.  It  may  be 
that  the  infancy  of  nations,  like  that  of  individuals, 
is  more  taken  up  with  imagination  and  sentiment 
than  with  reasoning,  and  is  thus  instinctively  led  to 
verse,  as  best  suited,  by  its  sweetness  and  harmony, 
to  the  expression  of  passionate  thought.  It  may  be, 
too,  that  the  refinements  of  modern  criticism  have 
multiplied  rather  than  relieved  the  difficulties  of  the 
art.  The  ancient  poet  poured  forth  his  carmina  in - 
condita  with  no  other  ambition  than  that  of  accom¬ 
modating  them  to  the  natural  music  of  his  own  ear, 
careless  of  the  punctilious  observances  which  the 
fastidious  taste  of  a  polished  age  so  peremptorily  de¬ 
mands.  However  this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that 
poetry  is  more  ancient  than  prose  in  the  records  of 
every  nation,  and  that  this  poetry  is  found  in  its  ear¬ 
liest  stages  almost  always  allied  with  music.  Thus 
the  Rhapsodies  of  Homer  were  chanted  to  the  sound 
of  the  lyre  by  the  wandering  bards  of  Ionia ;  thus 
the  citharoedi  of  the  ancient  Romans,  the  Welsh 

*  “The  Songs  of  Scotland,  Ancient  and  Modern,  with  an  Introduction 
and  Notes,  Historical  and  Critical,  and  the  Characters  of  the  Lyric  Poets. 
By  Allan  Cunningham.”  In  four  volumes.  London,  1825.  12mo. 


SCOTTISH  SONG. 


569 


harper,  the  Saxon  gleeman,  the  Scandinavian  scald, 
and  the  Norman  minstrel,  soothed  the  sensual  appe¬ 
tites  of  an  unlettered  age  by  the  more  exalted  charms 
of  poetry  and  music.  This  precocious  poetical  spirit 
seems  to  have  been  more  widely  diffused  among  the 
modern  than  the  ancient  European  nations.  The 
astonishing  perfection  of  the  Homeric  epics  makes 
it  probable,  it  is  true,  that  there  must  have  been  pre¬ 
viously  a  diligent  cultivation  of  the  divine  art  among 
the  natives.* 

The  introduction  of  the  bards  Phemius  and  De- 
modocus  into  the  Odyssey  shows  also  that  min¬ 
strelsy  had  long  been  familiar  to  Homer’s  country¬ 
men.  This,  however,  is  but  conjecture,  as  no  un¬ 
disputed  fragments  of  this  early  age  have  come  down 
to  us.  The  Romans,  we  know,  were  not,  till  a  very 
late  period,  moved  by  the  impetus  sacer.  One  or  two 
devotional  chants  and  a  few  ribald  satires  are  all 
that  claim  to  be  antiquities  in  their  prosaic  literature. 

It  was  far  otherwise  with  the  nations  of  modern 
Europe.  Whether  the  romantic  institutions  of  the 
age,  or  the  warmth  of  classic  literature  not  wholly 
extinguished,  awakened  this  general  enthusiasm,  we 
know  not ;  but  no  sooner  had  the  thick  darkness, 
which  for  centuries  had  settled  over  the  nations,  be¬ 
gun  to  dissipate,  than  the  voice  of  song  was  heard 
in  the  remotest  corners  of  Europe,  where  heathen 
civilization  had  never  ventured  ;  from  the  frozen 
isles  of  Britain  and  Scandinavia,  no  less  than  from 


*  “  Nec  dubitaii  debet  quin  fuerint  ante  Homerum  noetae.” — Cic. 
Brut.,  18. 


4  C 


570  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

the  fertile  shores  of  Italy  and  Provence.  We  do  not 
mean  that  the  light  of  song  was  totally  extinguished, 
even  at  the  darkest  period.  It  may  be  faintly  dis¬ 
cerned  in  the  barbaric  festivals  of  Attila,  himself  the 
theme  of  more  than  one  venerable  German  romance  ; 
and,  at  a  later  period,  in  the  comparatively  refined 
courts  of  Alfred  and  Charlemagne. 

But  it  was  not  until  the  eleventh  or  twelfth  cen¬ 
tury  that  refinement  of  taste  was  far  advanced  among 
the  nations  of  Europe ;  that,  in  spite  of  all  the  ob¬ 
stacles  of  a  rude,  unconcocted  dialect,  the  founda¬ 
tions  and  the  forms  of  their  poetical  literature  were 
cast,  which,  with  some  modification,  they  have  re¬ 
tained  ever  since.  Of  these,  the  ballads  may  be  con¬ 
sidered  as  coming  more  immediately  from  the  body 
of  the  people.  In  no  country  did  they  take  such 
deep  root  as  in  Spain  and  Scotland,  and,  although 
cultivated  more  or  less  by  all  the  Northern  nations, 
yet  nowhere  else  have  they  had  the  good  fortune, 
by  their  own  intrinsic  beauty,  and  by  the  influence 
they  have  exerted  over  the  popular  character,  to 
constitute  so  important  a  part  of  the  national  litera¬ 
ture.  The  causes  of  this  are  to  be  traced  to  the  po¬ 
litical  relations  of  these  countries.  Spain,  divided 
into  a  number  of  petty  principalities,  which  contend¬ 
ed  with  each  other  for  pre-eminence,  was  obliged  to 
carry  on  a  far  more  desperate  struggle  for  existence, 
as  well  as  religion,  with  its  Saracen  invaders ;  who, 
after  advancing  their  victorious  crescent  from  the 
Arabian  desert  to  the  foot  of  the  Pyrenees,  had  es¬ 
tablished  a  solid  empire  over  the  fairest  portions  of 


t 


SCOTTISH  SONG.  571 

the  Peninsula.  Seven  long  centuries  was  the  an¬ 
cient  Spaniard  reclaiming,  inch  by  inch,  this  con¬ 
quered  territory ;  thus  a  perpetual  crusade  was  car¬ 
ried  on,  and  the  fertile  fields  of  Andalusia  and  Gra¬ 
nada  became  the  mimic  theatre  of  exploits  similar  to 
those  performed  by  the  martial  enthusiasts  of  Europe, 
on  a  much  greater  scale,  indeed,  on  the  plains  of 
Palestine.  The  effect  of  all  this  was  to  infuse  into 
their  popular  compositions  a  sort  of  devotional  he¬ 
roism,  which  is  to  be  looked  for  in  vain  in  any  other. 
The  existence  of  the  Cid,  so  early  as  the  eleventh 
century,  was  a  fortunate  event  for  Spanish  poetry. 
The  authenticated  actions  of  that  chief  are  so  near¬ 
ly  allied  to  the  marvellous,  that,  like  Charlemagne, 
he  forms  a  convenient  nucleus  for  the  manifold  fic¬ 
tions  in  which  successive  bards  have  enveloped  him. 
The  ballads  relating  to  this  doughty  hero  have  been 
collected  into  a  sort  of  patchwork  epic,  whose  fabri¬ 
cation  thus  resembles  that  imputed  to  those  ancient 
poems  which  some  modern  critics  have  determined 
to  be  but  a  tissue  of  rhapsodies  executed  by  different 
masters.  But,  without  comparing  them  with  the 
epics  of  Homer  in  symmetry  of  design  or  perfection 
of  versification,  we  may  reasonably  claim  for  them 
a  moral  elevation  not  inferior,  and  a  tone  of  courtesy 
and  generous  gallantry  altogether  unknown  to  the 
heroes  of  the  Iliad. 

The  most  interesting  of  the  Spanish  ballads  are 
those  relating  to  the  Moors.  This  people,  now  so 
degraded  in  every  intellectual  and  moral  aspect, 
were,  as  is  well  known,  in  the  ninth  and  tenth  ceil- 


572  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

turies  the  principal  depositaries  of  useful  science  and 
elegant  art.  This  is  particularly  true  of  the  Span¬ 
ish  caliphate ;  and  more  than  one  Christian  prelate 
is  on  record  who,  in  a  superstitious  age,  performed 
a  literary  pilgrimage  to  the  schools  of  Cordova,  and 
drank  from  these  profane  sources  of  wisdom.  The 
peculiarities  of  Oriental  costume;  their  showy  mili¬ 
tary  exercises ;  their  perilous  bull-feasts  and  cane- 
fights  ;  their  chivalrie  defiance  and  rencounters  with 
the  Christian  knights  on  the  plains  before  the  assem¬ 
bled  city ;  their  brilliant  revels,  romantic  wooings, 
and  midnight  serenades,  afforded  rich  themes  for  the 
muse ;  above  all,  the  capture  and  desolation  of  Gra¬ 
nada,  that  “  city  without  peer,”  the  “  pride  of  heath¬ 
endom,”  on  which  the  taste  and  treasures  of  the 
Western  caliphs  had  been  lavished  for  seven  centu¬ 
ries,  are  detailed  in  a  tone  of  melancholy  grandeur, 
which  comes  over  us  like  the  voice  of  an  expiring 
nation.* 

One  trait  has  been  pointed  out  in  these  poems 
most  honourable  to  the  Spanish  character,  and  in 
which,  in  later  times,  it  has  been  lamentably  defi¬ 
cient,  that  of  religious  toleration ;  we  find  none  of 
the  fierce  bigotry  which  armed  the  iron  hand  of  the 

*  An  ancient  Arabian  writer  concludes  a  florid  eulogium  on  the  ar¬ 
chitecture  and  local  beauties  of  Granada  in  the  fourteenth  century,  with 
likening  it,  in  Oriental  fashion,  to  “  a  richly-wrought  vase  of  silver,  filled 
with  jacinths  and  emeralds.” — Historia  de  los  Arabes  de  Espana,  tom.  iii., 
p.  147.  Among  the  ballads  relating  to  the  Moorish  wars,  two  of  the 
most  beautiful  are  the  “  Lament  over  Alhama,”  indifferently  translated 
by  Byron,  and  that  beginning  with  “  En  la  ciudad  de  Granada,”  rendered 
by  Lockhart  with  his  usual  freedom  and  vivacity. — Hita,  i.,  464,  and 
Depping,  240. 


SCOTTISH  SONG. 


573 


Inquisition  ;  which  coolly  condemned  to  exile  or 
the  stake  a  numerous  native  population  for  an  hon 
est  difference  of  religious  opinion,  and  desolated  with 
fire  and  sword  the  most  flourishing  of  their  Chris¬ 
tian  provinces. 

The  ancient  Spaniard,  on  the  contrary,  influenced 
by  a  more  enlightened  policy,  as  well  as  by  human¬ 
ity,  contracted  familiar  intimacies,  nay,  even  matri¬ 
monial  alliances,  with  his  Mohammedan  rivals,  and 
the  proudest  of  their  nobles  did  not  disdain,  in  an 
honest  cause,  to  fight  under  the  banners  of  the  In¬ 
fidel.  It  would  be  a  curious  study  to  trace  the  prog¬ 
ress  and  the  causes  of  this  pitiable  revolution  in  na¬ 
tional  feeling. 

The  Spaniards  have  good  reason  to  cherish  their 
ancient  ballads,  for  nowhere  is  the  high  Castilian 
character  displayed  to  such  advantage.  Haughty, 
it  is  true,  jealous  of  insult,  and  without  the  tincture 
of  letters,  which  throws  a  lustre  over  the  polished 
court  of  Charles  and  Philip  ;  but  also  without  the 
avarice,  the  insatiable  cruelty,  and  dismal  supersti¬ 
tion  which  deface  the  bright  page  of  their  military 
renown.*  The  Cid  himself,  whose  authentic  his¬ 
tory  may  vindicate  the  hyperbole  of  romance,  was 
the  beau  ideal  of  chivalry.f 

*  Sufficient  evidence  of  this  may  be  found  in  works  of  imagination,  as 
well  as  the  histories  of  the  period.  The  plays  of  Lope  de  Vega,  for  in¬ 
stance,  are  filled  with  all  manner  of  perfidy  and  assassination,  which 
takes  place  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  without  the  least  compunction. 
In  the  same  spirit,  the  barbarous  excesses  of  his  countrymen  in  South 
America  are  detailed  by  Ercilla,  in  his  historical  epic,  La  Araucana.  The 
flimsy  pretext  of  conscience,  for  which  these  crimes  are  perpetrated, 
cannot  veil  their  enormity  from  any  hut  the  eyes  of  the  offender. 

t  The  veracity  of  the  traditionary  history  of  the  Cid,  indeed  his  exist- 


574  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

The  peculiarities  of  early  Scottish  poetry  may 
also  be  referred,  in  a  great  degree,  to  the  political 
relations  of  the  nation,  which  for  many  centuries 
was  distracted  by  all  the  rancorous  dissensions  inci¬ 
dent  to  the  ill-balanced  fabric  of  feudal  government. 
The  frequent  and  long  regencies,  always  unfavour¬ 
able  to  civil  concord,  multiplied  the  sources  of  jeal¬ 
ousy,  and  armed  with  new  powers  the  factious  aris¬ 
tocracy.  In  the  absence  of  legitimate  authority, 
each  baron  sought  to  fortify  himself  by  the  increased 
number  of  his  retainers,  wdio,  in  their  turn,  willingly 
attached  themselves  to  the  fortunes  of  a  chief  who 
secured  to  them  plunder  and  protection.  Hence  a 
system  of  clanship  was  organized,  more  perfect  and 
more  durable  than  has  existed  in  any  other  country, 
which  is  not  entirely  effaced  at  the  present  day.  To 
the  nobles  who  garrisoned  the  Marches,  still  greater 
military  powers  were  necessarily  delegated  for  pur¬ 
poses  of  state  defence,  and  the  names  of  Home, 
Douglas,  and  Buccleuch  make  a  far  more  frequent 
and  important  figure  in  national  history  than  that  of 
the  reigning  sovereign.  Hence  private  feuds  were 
inflamed  and  vindicated  by  national  antipathies,  and 
a  pretext  of  patriotism  was  never  wanting  to  justify 
perpetual  hostility.  Hence  the  scene  of  the  old 

ence,  discussed  and  denied  by  Masdeu,  in  his  Historia  Critica  de  Espana, 
has  been  satisfactorily  established  hy  the  learned  Muller  ;  and  the  con¬ 
clusions  of  the  latter  writer  are  recently  confirmed  by  Conde’s  posthu¬ 
mous  publication  of  translated  Arabian  manuscripts  of  great  antiquity, 
where  the  Cid  is  repeatedly  mentioned  as  the  chief  known  by  the  name 
of  the  Warrior,  el  Campeador :  “  the  Cid  whom  Alla  curse  “  the  tyrant 
Cid “  the  accursed  Cid,”  &c.  See  Historia  de  los  Arabes  de  Espana, 
ii.,  92. 


SCOTTISH  SONG. 


575 


ballads  was  laid  chiefly  on  the  borders,  and  hence 
the  minstrels  of  the  “  North  Countrie”  obtained  such 
pre-eminence  over  their  musical  brethren. 

The  odious  passion  of  revenge,  which  seems 
adapted  by  nature  to  the  ardent  temperaments  of 
the  South,  but  which  even  there  has  been  mitigated 
by  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  glowed  with  fierce  heat 
in  the  bosoms  of  those  Northern  savages.  An  of¬ 
fence  to  the  meanest  individual  was  espoused  by  his 
whole  clan,  and  was  expiated,  not  by  the  blood  of 
the  offender  only,  but  by  that  of  his  whole  kindred. 
The  sack  of  a  peaceful  castle,  and  the  slaughter  of 
its  sleeping  inhabitants,  seem  to  have  been  as  famil¬ 
iar  occurrences  to  these  Border  heroes  as  the  lifting 
of  a  drove  of  cattle,  and  attended  with  as  little  com- 

i  7 

punction.  The  following  pious  invocation,  uttered 
on  the  eve  of  an  approaching  foray,  may  show  the 
acuteness  of  their  moral  sensibility  : 

“  He  that  ordained  us  to  be  born, 

Sent  us  mair  meat  for  the  morn. 

Come  by  right  or  come  by  wrang, 

Christ,  let  us  not  fast  owre  lang, 

But  blithely  spend  what’s  gaily  got. 

Ride,  Rowland,  hough ’s  i’  the  pot.” 

When  superstition  usurps  the  place  of  religion, 
there  will  be  little  morality  among  the  people.  The 
only  law  they  knew  was  the  command  of  their  chief, 
and  the  only  one  he  admitted  was  his  sword.  “  By 
what  right,”  said  a  Scottish  prince  to  a  marauding 
Douglas,  “  do  you  hold  these  lands  V’  “  By  that  of 
my  sword,”  he  answered. 

From  these  causes  the  early  Scottish  poetry  is 


576  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

deeply  tinged  with  a  gloomy  ferocity,  and  abounds 
in  details  of  cool,  deliberate  cruelty.  It  is  true  that 
this  is  frequently  set  off,  as  in  the  fine  old  ballads  of 
Chevy  Chase  and  Auld  Maitland,  by  such  deeds  of 
rude  but  heroic  gallantry  as,  in  the  words  of  Sid¬ 
ney,  “stir  the  soul  like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet.” 
But,  on  the  whole,  although  the  scene  of  the  oldest 
ballads  is  pitched  as  late  as  the  fourteenth  century, 
the  manners  they  exhibit  are  not  much  superior,  in 
point  of  refinement  and  humanity,  to  those  of  our 
own  North  American  savages.* 

From  w'anton  or  vindictive  cruelty,  especially 
when  exercised  on  the  defenceless  or  the  innocent, 
the  cultivated  mind  naturally  shrinks  with  horror 
and  disgust ;  but  it  was  long  ere  the  stern  hearts  of 
our  English  ancestors  yielded  to  the  soft  impulses 
of  mercy  and  benevolence.  The  reigns  of  the  Nor¬ 
man  dynasty  are  written  in  characters  of  fire  and 
blood.  As  late  as  the  conclusion  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  we  find  the  Black  Prince,  the  “  flower  of 
English  knighthood,’’  as  Froissart  styles  him,  super¬ 
intending  the  butchery  of  three  thousand  unresisting 
captives,  men,  women,  and  children,  who  vainly 
clung  to  him  for  mercy.  The  general  usage  of  sur¬ 
rendering  as  hostages  their  wives  and  children, 
whose  members  were  mutilated  or  lives  sacrificed  on 
the  least  infraction  of  their  engagements,  is  a  still 

*  For  proof  of  this  assertion,  see  Minstrelsy  of  the  Scottish  Border,” 
and  in  particular  the  ballads  of  “  Jellon  Grame,”  “Young  Benjie,”  “  Lord 
William,”  “  Duel  of  Wharton  and  Stuart,”  “  Death  of  Featherstone- 
haugh,”  “  Douglas  Tragedy,”  &c. 


SCOTTISH  SONG. 


5  77 


better  evidence  of  the  universal  barbarism  of  the  so 
much  lauded  age  of  chivalry. 

Another  trait  in  the  old  Scotch  poetry,  and  of  a 
very  opposite  nature  from  that  we  have  been  descri¬ 
bing,  is  its  occasional  sensibility  :  touches  of  genuine 
pathos  are  found  scattered  among  the  cold,  appalling 
passions  of  the  age,  like  the  flowers  which,  in  Switz¬ 
erland,  are  said  to  bloom  alongside  the  avalanche. 
No  state  of  society  is  so  rude  as  to  extinguish  the 
spark  of  natural  affection;  tenderness  for  our  off¬ 
spring  is  but  a  more  enlarged  selfishness,  perfectly 
compatible  with  the  utmost  ferocity  towards  others. 
Hence  scenes  of  parental  and  filial  attachment  are 
to  be  met  with  in  these  poems  which  cannot  be  read 
without  emotion.  The  passion  of  love  appears  to 
have  been  a  favourite  study  with  the  ancient  Eng¬ 
lish  writers,  and  by  none,  in  any  language  we  have 
read,  is  it  managed  with  so  much  art  and  feeling  as¬ 
hy  the  dramatic  writers  of  Queen  Elizabeth’s  day. 
The  Scottish  minstrels,  with  less  art,  seem  to  be  en¬ 
titled  to  the  praise  of  possessing  an  equal  share  of 
tenderness.  In  the  Spanish  ballad  love  glows  wkh 
the  fierce  ardour  of  a  tropical  sun.  The  amorous 
serenade!*  celebrates  the  beauties  of  his  Zayda  (the 
name  which,  from  its  frequency,  would  seem  to  be  a 
general  title  for  a  Spanish  mistress)  in  all  the  florid 
hyperbole  of  Oriental  gallantry,  or,  as  a  disappoint¬ 
ed  lover,  wanders  along  the  banks  of  the  Guadalete, 
imprecating  curses  on  her  head  and  vengeance  on 
his  devoted  rival.  The  calm  dejection  and  tender 
melancholy  which  are  diffused  over  the  Scottish 

4  D 


o78  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

love-songs  are  far  more  affecting  than  all  this  turbu 
lence  of  passion.  The  sensibility  which,  even  in  a 
rude  age,  seems  to  have  characterized  the  Scottish 
maiden,  was  doubtless  nourished  by  the  solemn  com¬ 
plexion  of  the  scenery  by  which  she  was  surround¬ 
ed,  by  the  sympathies  continually  awakened  for  her 
lover  in  his  career  of  peril  and  adventure,  and  by 
the  facilities  afforded  her  for  brooding  over  her  mis¬ 
fortunes  in  the  silence  of  rural  solitude. 

To  similar  physical  causes  may  he  principally  re¬ 
ferred  those  superstitions  which  are  so  liberally  dif¬ 
fused  over  the  poetry  of  Scotland  down  to  the  pres¬ 
ent  day.  The  tendency  of  wild,  solitary  districts, 
darkened  with  mountains  and  extensive  forests,  to 
raise  in  the  mind  ideas  of  solemn,  preternatural  awe, 
has  been  noticed  from  the  earliest  ages.  “  Where  is 
a  lofty  and  deeply-shaded  grove,”  writes  Seneca,  in 
one  of  his  epistles,  “  filled  with  venerable  trees, 
whose  interlacing  boughs  shut  out  the  face  of  heav¬ 
en,  the  grandeur  of  the  wood,  the  silence  of  the 
place,  the  shade  so  dense  and  uniform,  infuse  into 
the  breast  the  notion  of  a  divinity and  thus  the 
speculative  fancy  of  the  ancients,  always  ready  to 
supply  the  apparent  void  of  nature,  garrisoned  each 
grove,  fountain,  or  grotto,  with  some  local  and  tute¬ 
lary  genius.  These  sylvan  deities,  clothed  with  cor¬ 
poreal  figures,  and  endowed  with  mortal  appetites, 
were  brought  near  to  the  level  of  humanity  ;  but  the 
Christian  revelation,  which  assures  us  of  another 
world,  is  the  “  evidence  of  things  unseen,”  and,  while 
»t  dissipates  the  gross  and  sensible  creations  of  class- 


SCOTTISH  SONG. 


579 


ic  mythology,  raises  our  conceptions  to  the  spiritual 
and  the  infinite.  In  our  eager  thirst  for  communi¬ 
cation  with  the  world  of  spirits,  we  naturally  ima¬ 
gine  it  can  only  he  through  the  medium  of  spirits 
like  themselves,  and,  in  the  vulgar  creed,  these  appa¬ 
ritions  never  come  from  the  abodes  of  the  blessed, 
but  from  the  tomb,  where  they  are  supposed  to  await 
the  period  of  a  final  and  universal  resurrection,  and 
whence  they  are  allowed  to  “  revisit  the  glimpses  of 
the  moon,”  for  penance  or  some  other  inscrutable 
purpose.  Hence  the  gloomy,  undefined  character 
of  the  modem  apparition  is  much  more  appalling 
than  the  sensual  and  social  personifications  of  anti¬ 
quity. 

The  natural  phenomena  of  a  wild,  uncultivated 
country  greatly  conspire  to  promote  the  illusions  of 
the  fancy.  The  power  of  clouds  to  reflect,  to  dis¬ 
tort,  and  to  magnify  objects  is  well  known,  and  on 
this  principle  many  of  the  preternatural  appearances 
in  the  German  mountains  and  the  Scottish  High¬ 
lands,  whose  lofty  summits  and  unreclaimed  valleys 
are  shrouded  in  clouds  and  exhalations,  have  been 
ingeniously  and  philosophically  explained.  The 
solitary  peasant,  as  the  shades  of  evening  close 
around  him,  witnesses  with  dismay  the  gathering 
phantoms,  and,  hurrying  home,  retails  his  adventures 
with  due  amplification.  What  is  easily  believed  is 
easily  seen,  and  the  marvellous  incident  is  soon  pla¬ 
ced  beyond  dispute  by  a  multitude  of  testimonies. 
The  appetite,  once  excited,  is  keen  in  detecting 
other  visions  and  prognostics,  which  as  speedily  cir- 


580  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCEI  LANIES. 

culate  through  the  channels  of  rustic  tradition,  until 
in  time  each  glen  and  solitary  heath  has  its  un¬ 
earthly  visitants,  each  family  its  omen  or  boding 
spectre,  and  superstition,  systematized  into  a  sci¬ 
ence,  is  expounded  by  indoctrinated  wizards  and 
gifted  seers. 

In  addition  to  these  fancies,  common,  though  in  a 

» 

less  degree,  to  other  nations,  the  inhabitants  of  the 
North  have  inherited  a  more  material  mythology, 
which  has  survived  the  elegant  fictions  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  either  because  it  was  not  deemed  of  suf¬ 
ficient  importance  to  provoke  the  arm  of  the  Church, 
or  because  it  was  too  nearly  accommodated  to  the 
moral  constitution  of  the  people  to  be  thus  easily 
eradicated.  The  character  of  a  mythology  is  always 
intimately  connected  with  that  of  the  scenery  and 
climate  in  which  it  is  invented.  Thus  the  graceful 
Nymphs  and  Naiads  of  Greece;  the  Peris  of  Persia, 
who  live  in  the  colours  of  the  rainbow,  and  on  the 
odours  of  flowers;  the  Fairies  of  England,  who  in 
airy  circles  “  dance  their  ringlets  to  the  whistling 
wind,”  have  the  frail  gossamer  forms  and  delicate 
functions  congenial  with  the  beautiful  countries 
which  they  inhabit ;  while  the  Elves,  Bogles,  Brown¬ 
ies,  and  Kelpies,  which  seem  to  have  legitimately  de¬ 
scended,  in  ancient  Highland  verse,  from  the  Scan¬ 
dinavian  Dvergar,  Nisser,  &c.,  are  of  a  stunted  and 
malignant  aspect,  and  are  celebrated  for  nothing  bet¬ 
ter  than  maiming  cattle,  bewildering  the  benighted 
traveller,  and  conjuring  out  the  souls  of  newborn 
infants.  Within  the  memory  of  the  present  genera- 


SCOTTISH  SONG. 


581 


tion,  very  well  authenticated  anecdotes  of  these 
ghostly  kidnappers  have  been  circulated  and  greed¬ 
ily  credited  in  the  Scottish  Highlands.  But  the 
sunshine  of  civilization  is  rapidly  dispelling  the  lin¬ 
gering  mists  of  superstition.  The  spirits  of  darkness 
love  not  the  cheerful  haunts  of  men,  and  the  bustling 
activity  of  an  increasing,  industrious  population  al¬ 
lows  brief  space  for  the  fears  or  inventions  of  fancy. 

The  fierce  aspect  of  the  Scottish  ballad  was  mit¬ 
igated  under  the  general  tranquillity  which  followed 
the  accession  of  James  to  the  united  crowns  of  Eng¬ 
land  and  Scotland,  and  the  Northern  muse  might 
have  caught  some  of  the  inspiration  which  fired  her 
Southern  sister  at  this  remarkable  epoch,  had  not 
the  fatal  prejudices  of  her  sovereign  in  favour  of  an 
English  or  even  a  Latin  idiom  diverted  his  ancient 
subjects  from  the  cultivation  of  their  own.  As  it 
was,  Drummond  of  Hawthornden,  whose  melodious 
and  melancholy  strains,  however,  are  to  be  enrolled 
among  English  verse,  is  the  most  eminent  name 
which  adorns  the  scanty  annals  of  this  reign.  The 
civil  and  religious  broils,  which,  by  the  sharp  con¬ 
cussion  they  gave  to  the  English  intellect  during  the 
remainder  of  this  unhappy  century,  seemed  to  have 
forced  out  every  latent  spark  of  genius,  served  only 
to  discourage  the  less  polished  muse  of  the  North. 
The  austerity  of  the  reformers  chilled  the  sweet 
flow  of  social  song,  and  the  only  verse  in  vogue  was 
a  kind  of  rude  satire,  sometimes  pointed  at  the  licen¬ 
tiousness  of  the  Roman  clergy,  and  sometimes  at  the 
formal  affectation  of  the  Puritans,  but  which,  from 


582  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

the  coarseness  of  the  execution,  and  the  transitory 
interest  of  its  topics,  has  for  the  most  part  been  con¬ 
signed  to  a  decent  oblivion. 

The  Revolution  in  1688,  and  the  subsequent 
union  of  the  two  kingdoms,  by  the  permanent  assu¬ 
rance  they  gave  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  and, 
lastly,  the  establishment  of  parochial  schools  about 
the  same  period,  by  that  wide  diffusion  of  intelli¬ 
gence  among  the  lower  orders  which  has  elevated 
them  above  every  other  European  peasantry,  had  a 
most  sensible  influence  on  the  moral  and  intellectual 
progress  of  the  nation.  Improvements  in  art  and 
agriculture  were  introduced;  the  circle  of  ideas  was 
expanded,  and  the  feelings  liberalized  by  a  free 
communication  with  their  southern  neighbours,  and 
religion,  resigning  much  of  her  austerity,  lent  a  pru¬ 
dent  sanction  to  the  hilarity  of  social  intercourse. 
Popular  poetry  naturally  reflects  the  habits  and  pre¬ 
vailing  sentiments  of  a  nation.  The  ancient  notes 
of  the  border  trumpet  were  exchanged  for  the  cheer¬ 
ful  sounds  of  rustic  revelry  ;  and  the  sensibility  which 
used  to  be  exhausted  on  subjects  of  acute  but  pain- 
fol  interest,  now  celebrated  the  temperate  pleasures 
of  domestic  happiness,  and  rational  though  romantic 
love. 

The  rustic  glee,  which  had  put  such  mettle  into 
the  compositions  of  James  the  First  and  Fifth,  those 
royal  poets  of  the  commonalty,  as  they  have  been 
aptly  styled,  was  again  renewed  ;  ancient  songs,  pu¬ 
rified  from  their  original  vices  of  sentiment  or  dic¬ 
tion,  were  revived  ;  new  ones  were  accommodated 


SCOTTISH  SONG.  583 

to  ancient  melodies ;  and  a  revolution  was  gradually 
effected  in  Scottish  verse,  which  experienced  little 
variation  during  the  remainder  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  The  existence  of  a  national  music  is  es¬ 
sential  to  the  entire  success  of  lyrical  poetry.  It 
may  be  said,  indeed,  to  give  wings  to  song,  which, 
in  spite  of  its  imperfections,  is  thus  borne  along  from 
one  extremity  of  the  nation  to  the  other,  with  a  ra¬ 
pidity  denied  to  many  a  nobler  composition. 

Thus  allied,  verse  not  only  represents  the  present, 
but  the  past ;  and  while  it  invites  us  to  repose  or  to 
honourable  action,  its  tones  speak  of  joys  which  are 
gone,  or  wake  in  us  the  recollections  of  ancient 
glory. 

It  is  impossible  to  trace  the  authors  of  a  large  por¬ 
tion  of  the  popular  lyrics  of  Scotland,  which,  like  its 
native  wild-flowers,  seem  to  have  sprung  up  sponta¬ 
neously  in  the  most  sequestered  solitudes  of  the 
country.  Many  of  these  poets,  even,  who  are  famil¬ 
iar  in  the  mouths  of  their  own  countrymen,  are  bet¬ 
ter  known  south  of  the  Tweed  by  the  compositions 
which,  under  the  title  of  “  Scottish  Melodies/’  are 
diligently  thrummed  by  every  miss  in  her  teens,  than 
by  their  names  ;  while  some  few  others,  as  Ramsay, 
Ferguson,  &c.,  whose  independent  tomes  maintain 
higher  reputation,  are  better  known  by  their  names 
than  their  compositions,  which,  much  applauded,  are, 
we  suspect,  but  little  read. 

The  union  of  Scotland  with  England  was  unpro- 
pitious  to  the  language  of  the  former  country ;  at 
least,  it  prevented  it  from  attaining  a  classical  per- 


584  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

fection,  which  some,  perhaps,  may  not  regret,  as  be¬ 
ing  in  its  present  state  a  better  vehicle  for  the  popu¬ 
lar  poetry,  so  consonant  with  the  genius  of  the  na¬ 
tion.  Under  Edward  the  First  the  two  nations 
spoke  the  same  language,  and  the  formidable  epics 
of  Barbour  and  Blind  Harry,  his  contemporaries, 
are  cited  by  Warton  as  superior  models  of  English 
versification.  After  the  lapse  of  five  centuries,  the 
Scottish  idiom  retains  a  much  greater  affinity  with 
the  original  stock  than  does  the  English ;  but  the 
universal  habit  with  the  Scotch  of  employing  the 
latter  in  works  of  taste  or  science,  arid  of  relinquish¬ 
ing  their  own  idiom  to  the  more  humble  uses  of  the 
people,  has  degraded  it  to  the  unmerited  condition 
of  a  provincial  dialect.  Few  persons  care  to  be¬ 
stow  much  time  in  deciphering  a  vocabulary  which 
conceals  no  other  treasures  than  those  of  popular 
fancy  and  tradition. 

A  genius  like  Burns  certainly  may  do,  and  doubt¬ 
less  has  done,  much  to  diffuse  a  knowledge  and  a 
relish  for  his  native  idiom.  His  character  as  a  poet 
has  been  too  often  canvassed  by  writers  and  biog¬ 
raphers  to  require  our  panegyric.  We  define  it, 
perhaps,  as  concisely  as  may  be,  by  saying,  that  it 
consisted  of  an  acute  sensibility,  regulated  by  un¬ 
common  intellectual  vigour.  Hence  his  frequent 
visions  of  rustic  love  and  courtship  never  sink  into 
mawkish  sentimentality,  his  quiet  pictures  of  do¬ 
mestic  life  are  without  insipidity,  and  his  mirth  is 
not  the  unmeaning  ebullition  of  animal  spirits,  but  is 
pointed  with  the  reflection  of  a  keen  observer  of  hu- 


SCOTTISH  SONG. 


585 


man  nature.  This  latter  talent,  less  applauded  in 
him  than  some  others,  is  in  our  opinion  his  most 
eminent.  Without  the  grace  of  La  Fontaine,  or  the 
broad  buffoonery  of  Berni,  he  displays  the  same  fa¬ 
cility  of  illuminating  the  meanest  topics,  seasons  his 
humour  with  as  shrewd  a  moral,  and  surpasses  both 
in  a  generous  sensibility,  which  gives  an  air  of  truth 
and  cordiality  to  all  his  sentiments.  Lyrical  poetry 
admits  of  less  variety  than  any  other  species ;  and 
Burns,  from  this  circumstance,  as  well  as  from  the 
flexibility  of  his  talents,  may  be  considered  as  the 
representative  of  his  whole  nation.  Indeed,  his  uni¬ 
versal  genius  seems  to  have  concentrated  within  it¬ 
self  the  rays  which  were  scattered  among  his  prede¬ 
cessors  :  the  simple  tenderness  of  Crawford,  the 
fidelity  of  Ramsay,  and  careless  humour  of  Ferguson. 
The  Doric  dialect  of  his  country  was  an  instrument 
peculiarly  fitted  for  the  expression  of  his  manly  and 
unsophisticated  sentiments.  But  no  one  is  more  in¬ 
debted  to  the  national  music  than  Burns :  embalm¬ 
ed  in  the  sacred  melody,  his  songs  are  familiar  to  us 
from  childhood,  and,  as  we  read  them,  the  silver 
sounds  with  which  they  have  been  united  seem  to 
linger  in  our  memory,  heightening  and  prolonging 
the  emotions  which  the  sentiments  have  excited. 

Mr.  Cunningham,  to  whom  it  is  high  time  we 
should  turn,  in  some  prefatory  reflections  on  the 
condition  of  Scottish  poetry,  laments  exceedingly 
the  improvements  in  agriculture  and  mechanics,  the 
multiplication  of  pursuits,  the  wider  expansion  of 

4  E 


586  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

knowledge,  which  have  taken  place  among  the  peas¬ 
antry  of  Scotland  during  the  present  century. 

“  Change  of  condition,  increase  of  knowledge,” 
says  he,  “  the  calling  in  of  machinery  to  the  aid  of 
human  labour,  and  the  ships  which  whiten  the  ocean 
with  their  passing  and  repassing  sails,  wafting  luxu¬ 
ries  to  our  backs  and  our  tables,  are  all  matters  of 
delight  to  the  historian  or  the  politician,  but  of  sor¬ 
row  to  the  poet,  who  delights  in  the  primitive  glory 
of  a  people,  and  contemplates  with  pain  all  changes 
which  lessen  the  original  vigour  of  character,  and 
refine  mankind  till  they  become  too  sensitive  for  en¬ 
joyment.  Man  has  now  to  labour  harder  and  long¬ 
er  to  shape  out  new  ways  to  riches,  and  even 
bread,  and  feel  the  sorrows  of  the  primeval  curse,  a 
hot  and  sweaty  brow,  more  frequently  and  more  se¬ 
verely  than  his  ancestors.  All  this  is  uncongenial  to 
the  creation  of  song,  where  many  of  our  finest  songs 
have  been  created,  and  to  its  enjoyment,  where  it 
was  long  and  fondly  enjoyed,  among  the  peasantry 
of  Scotland.” — Preface. 

These  circumstances  certainly  will  be  a  matter 
of  delight  to  the  historian  and  politician,  and  we 
doubt  if  they  afford  any  reasonable  cause  of  lamen¬ 
tation  to  the  poet.  An  age  of  rudeness  and  igno¬ 
rance  is  not  the  most  propitious  to  a  flourishing  con¬ 
dition  of  the  art,  which  indulges  quite  as  much  in 
visions  of  the  past  as  the  present,  in  recollections  as 
in  existing  occupations ;  and  this  is  not  only  true  of 
civilized,  but  of  ruder  ages:  the  forgotten  bards  of 
the  Niebelungen  and  the  Heldenbuch.  of  the  roman- 


SCOTTISH  SONG. 


587 


ces  of  Arthur  and  of  Charlemagne,  looked  back 
through  the  vista  of  seven  hundred  years  for  their 
subjects,  and  the  earliest  of  the  Border  minstrelsy 
celebrates  the  antique  feuds  of  a  preceding  century. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  wider  acquaintance  with  spec¬ 
ulative  and  active  concerns  may  be  thought  to  open 
a  bolder  range  of  ideas  and  illustrations  to  the  poet. 
Examples  of  this  may  be  discerned  among  the  Scot¬ 
tish  poets  of  the  present  age ;  and  if  the  most  emi¬ 
nent,  as  Scott,  Campbell,  Joanna  Baillie,  have  de¬ 
serted  their  natural  dialect  and  the  humble  themes 
of  popular  interest  for  others  better  suited  to  their 
aspiring  genius,  and  for  a  language  which  could  dif¬ 
fuse  and  perpetuate  their  compositions,  it  can  hardly 
be  matter  for  serious  reproach  even  with  their  own 
countrymen.  But  this  is  not  true  of  Scott,  who  has 
always  condescended  to  illuminate  the  most  rugged 
and  the  meanest  topics  relating  to  his  own  nation, 
and  who  has  revived  in  his  “  Minstrelsy”  not  merely 
the  costume,  but  the  spirit  of  the  ancient  Border 
muse  of  love  and  chivalry. 

In  a  similar  tone  of  lamentation,  Mr.  Cunning¬ 
ham  deprecates  the  untimely  decay  of  superstition 
throughout  the  land.  But  the  seeds  of  superstition 
are  not  thus  easily  eradicated ;  its  grosser  illusions, 
indeed,  may,  as  we  have  before  said,  be  scattered  by 
the  increasing  light  of  science ;  but  the  principal 
difference  between  a  rude  and  a  civilized  age,  at 
least  as  regards  poetical  fiction,  is  that  the  latter  re¬ 
quires  more  skill  and  plausibility  in  working  up  the 
inateriel  than  the  former.  The  witches  of  Macbeth 


588  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

are  drawn  too  broadly  to  impose  on  the  modern 
spectator,  as  they  probably  did  on  the  credulous  age 
of  Queen  Bess  ;  but  the  apparition  in  Job,  or  the 
Bodach  Glas  in  Waverley,  is  shadowed  with  a  dim 
and  mysterious  portraiture,  that  inspires  a  solemn 
interest  sufficient  for  the  purposes  of  poetry.  The 
philosophic  mind  may  smile  with  contempt  at  pop¬ 
ular  fancies,  convinced  that  the  general  experience 
of  mankind  contradicts  the  existence  of  apparitions ; 
that  the  narratives  of  them  are  vague  and  ill  authen¬ 
ticated  ;  that  they  never  or  rarely  appeal  to  more 
than  one  sense,  and  that  the  most  open  to  illusion; 
that  they  appear  only  in  moments  of  excitement, 
and  in  seasons  of  solitude  and  obscurity  ;  that  they 
come  for  no  explicable  purpose,  and  effect  no  per¬ 
ceptible  result ;  and  that,  therefore,  they  may  in  ev¬ 
ery  case  be  safely  imputed  to  a  diseased  or  a  deluded 
imagination.  But  if,  in  the  midst  of  these  solemn 
musings,  our  philosopher’s  candle  should  chance  to 
go  out,  it  is  not  quite  certain  that  he  would  continue 
to  pursue  them  with  the  same  stoical  serenity.  In 
short,  no  man  is  quite  so  much  a  hero  in  the  dark  as 
in  broad  daylight,  in  solitude  as  in  society,  in  the 
gloom  of  the  churchyard  as  in  the  blaze  of  the 
drawing-room.  The  season  and  the  place  may  be 
such  as  to  oppress  the  stoutest  heart  with  a  myste¬ 
rious  awe,  which,  if  not  fear,  is  near  akin  to  it.  We 
read  of  adventurous  travellers,  who,  through  a  sleep¬ 
less  night,  have  defied  the  perilous  nonentities  of  a 
haunted  chamber,  and  the  very  interest  we  take  in 
their  exploits  proves  that  the  superstitious  principle 


SCOTTISH  SONG. 


589 


is  not  wholly  extinguished  in  our  own  bosoms.  So, 
indeed,  do  the  mysterious  inventions  of  Mrs.  Rad- 
cliffe  and  her  ghostly  school ;  of  our  own  Brown,  in 
a  most  especial  manner ;  and  Scott,  ever  anxious  to 
exhibit  the  speculative  as  well  as  practical  character 
of  his  countrymen,  has  more  than  once  appealed  to 
the  same  general  principle.  Doubtless  few  in  this 
enlightened  age  are  disposed  boldly  to  admit  the 
existence  of  these  spiritual  phenomena;  but  fewer 
still  there  are  who  have  not  enough  of  superstitious 
feeling  lurking  in  their  bosoms  for  all  the  purposes 
of  poetical  interest. 

Mr.  Cunningham’s  work  consists  of  four  volumes 
of  lyrics,  in  a  descending  series  from  the  days  of 
Queen  Mary  to  our  own.  The  more  ancient,  after 
the  fashion  of  Burns  and  Ramsay,  he  has  varnished 
over  with  a  colouring  of  diction  that  gives  greater 
lustre  to  their  faded  beauties,  occasionally  restoring 
a  mutilated  member,  which  time  and  oblivion  had 
devoured.  Our  author’s  prose,  consisting  of  a  co¬ 
pious  preface  and  critical  notices,  is  both  florid  and 
pedantic ;  it  continually  aspires  to  the  vicious  affec¬ 
tation  of  poetry,  and  explains  the  most  common  sen¬ 
timents  by  a  host  of  illustrations  and  images,  thus 
perpetually  reminding  us  of  the  children’s  play  of 
“What  is  it  like?”  As  a  poet,  his  fame  has  long 
been  established,  and  the  few  original  pieces  which 
he  has  introduced  into  the  present  collection  have 
the  ease  and  natural  vivacity  conspicuous  in  his  for¬ 
mer  compositions.  We  will  quote  one  or  two,  which 
we  presume  are  the  least  familiar  to  our  readers: 


590  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

“A  wet  sheet  and  a  flowing  sea, 

A  wind  that  follows  fast, 

And  fills  the  white  and  rustling  sail, 

And  bends  the  gallant  mast ! 

And  bends  the  gallant  mast,  my  boys, 

While,  like  the  eagle  free, 

Away  the  good  ship  flies,  and  leaves 
Old  England  on  the  lea. 

“  0  for  a  soft  and  gentle  wind  ! 

I  heard  a  fair  one  cry ; 

But  give  to  me  the  swelling  breeze, 

And  white  waves  heaving  high ; 

And  white  waves  heaving  high,  my  lads, 

The  good  ship  tight  and  free  ; 

The  world  of  waters  is  our  home, 

And  merry  men  are  we. 

“  There’s  tempest  in  yon  horned  moon, 

And  lightning  in  yon  cloud  ; 

And  hark  the  music,  mariners  ! 

The  wind  is  wakening  loud. 

The  wind  is  wakening  loud,  my  boys, 

The  lightning  flashes  free  ; 

The  hollow  oak  our  palace  is, 

Our  heritage  the  sea.” — Vol.  iv.,  p.  208. 

This  spirited  water-piece,  worthy  of  Campbell,  is 
one  evidence  among  others  of  the  tendency  of  the 
present  improved  condition  of  the  Scottish  peasantry 
to  expand  the  beaten  circle  of  poetical  topics  and 
illustrations.  The  following  is  as  pretty  a  piece  of 
fairy  gossamer  as  has  been  spun  out  of  this  skepti¬ 
cal  age : 

“  SONG  OF  THE  ELFIN  MILLER. 

“Full  merrily  rings  the  millstone  round, 

Full  merrily  rings  the  wheel, 

Full  merrily  gushes  out  the  grist — 

Come,  taste  my  fragrant  meal. 

As  sends  the  lift  its  snowy  drift, 

So  the  meal  comes  in  a  shower ; 

Work,  fairies,  fast,  for  time  flies  past — 

I  borrow’d  the  mill  an  hour. 


SCOTTISH  SONG. 


591 


“  The  miller  he’s  a  worldly  man, 

And  maun  hae  double  fee  ; 

So  draw  the  sluice  of  the  churl’s  dam, 

And  let  the  stream  come  free. 

Shout,  fairies,  shout !  see,  gushing  out, 

The  meal  comes  like  a  river  ; 

The  top  of  the  grain  on  hill  and  plain 
Is  ours,  and  shall  be  ever. 

“  One  elf  goes  chasing  the  wild  bat’s  wing 
And  one  the  white  owl’s  horn  ; 

One  hunts  the  fox  for  the  white  o’  his  tail, 

And  we  winna  hae  him  till  morn. 

One  idle  fay,  with  the  glow-worm’s  ray, 

Runs  glimmering  ’mang  the  mosses  ; 

Another  goes  tramp  wi’  the  will-o-wisp’s  lamp, 

To  light  a  lad  to  the  lasses. 

“  0  haste,  my  brown  elf,  bring  me  corn 
From  bonnie  Blackwood  plains 

Go,  gentle  fairy,  bring  me  grain 
From  green  Dalgonar  mains  ; 

But,  pride  of  a’  at  Closeburn  ha’, 

Fair  is  the  corn  and  fatter ; 

Taste,  fairies,  taste,  a  gallanter  grist 
Has  never  been  wet  with  water. 

“  Hilloah  !  my  hopper  is  heaped  high  ; 

Hark  to  the  well-hung  wheels  ! 

They  sing  for  joy  ;  the  dusty  roof 
It  clatters  and  it  reels. 

Haste,  elves,  and  turn  yon  mountain  burn — 

Bring  streams  that  shine  like  siller ; 

The  dam  is  down,  the  moon  sinks  soon, 

And  I  maun  grind  my  meller. 

“  Ha  !  bravely  done,  my  wanton  elves, 

That  is  a  foaming  stream  ; 

See  how  the  dust  from  the  mill-ee  flies, 

And  chokes  the  cold  moon-beam. 

Haste,  fairies,  fleet  come  baptized  feet, 

Come  sack  and  sweep  up  clean, 

And  meet  me  soon,  ere  sinks  the  moon, 

In  thy  green  vale,  Dalveen.” — Vol.  iv.,  p.  327. 

The  last  we  can  afford  is  a  sweet,  amorous  effu¬ 
sion,  in  the  best  style  of  the  romantic  muse  of  the 


> 


592  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


Lowlands.  It  has  before  found  a  place  in  the  “Niths- 
dale  and  Galloway”  collection  : 

“  Thou  hast  vow’d  by  thy  faith,  my  Jeanie, 

By  that  pretty  white  hand  of  thine, 

And  by  all  the  lowing  stars  in  heaven 
That  thou  wouldst  aye  be  mine ; 

And  I  have  sworn  by  my  faith,  my  Jeanie, 

And  by  that  kind  heart  of  thine, 

By  all  the  stars  sown  thick  o’er  heaven, 

That  thou  shalt  aye  be  mine. 

“  Foul  fa’  the  hands  wad  loose  sic  bands 
And  the  heart  wad  part  sic  love  ; 

But  there’s  nae  hand  can  loose  the  band 
But  the  finger  of  Him  above. 

Though  the  wee  wee  cot  maun  be  my  bield 
And  my  clothing  e’er  sae  mean, 

I  should  lap  me  up  rich  in  the  faulds  of  love 
Heaven’s  armfu’  of  my  Jean. 

“  Thy  white  arm  wad  be  a  pillow  to  me, 

Far  softer  than  the  down, 

And  Love  wad  winnow  o’er  us  his  kind,  kind  wings 
And  sweetly  we’d  sleep  and  soun’. 

Come  here  to  me,  thou  lass  whom  I  love, 

Come  here  and  kneel  wi’  me, 

The  morning  is  full  of  the  presence  of  God, 

And  I  cannot  pray  but  thee. 

“  The  wind  is  sweet  amang  the  new  flowers, 

The  wee  birds  sing  saft  on  the  tree, 

Our  goodman  sits  in  the  bonnie  sunshine, 

And  a  blithe  old  bodie  is  he  ; 

The  Beuk  maun  be  ta’en  when  he  comes  hame, 

Wi’  the  holie  psalmodie, 

And  I  will  speak  of  thee  when  I  pray, 

And  thou  maun  speak  of  me.” — Yol.  iv.,  p.  308. 

Our  readers  may  think  we  have  been  detained  too 
long  by  so  humble  a  theme  as  old  songs  and  ballads ; 
yet  a  wise  man  has  said,  “  Give  me  the  making  of 
the  ballads,  and  I  care  not  who  makes  the  laws  of  a 
nation.”  Indeed,  they  will  not  be  lightly  regarded 


SCOTTISH  SONG. 


593 


by  those  who  consider  their  influence  on  the  char¬ 
acter  of  a  simple,  susceptible  people,  particularly 
in  a  rude  age,  when  they  constitute  the  authentic 
records  of  national  history.  Thus  the  wandering 
minstrel  kindles  in  his  unlettered  audience  a  gener¬ 
ous  emulation  of  the  deeds  of  their  ancestors,  and 
while  he  sings  the  bloody  feuds  of  the  Zegris  and 
Abencerrages,  the  Percy  and  the  Douglas,  artfully 
fans  the  flame  of  an  expiring  hostility.  Under  these 
animating  influences,  the  ancient  Spaniard  and  the 
Border  warrior  displayed  that  stern  military  enthu¬ 
siasm  which  distinguished  them  above  every  other 
peasantry  in  Europe.  Nor  is  this  influence  altogeth¬ 
er  extinguished  in  a  polite  age,  when  the  narrow  at¬ 
tachments  of  feudal  servitude  are  ripened  into  a 
more  expanded  patriotism  ;  the  generous  principle  is 
nourished  and  invigorated  in  the  patriot  by  the  sim¬ 
ple  strains  which  recount  the  honourable  toils,  the 
homebred  joys,  the  pastoral  adventures,  the  roman¬ 
tic  scenery,  which  have  endeared  to  him  the  land  of 
his  fathers.  There  is  no  moral  cause  which  oper¬ 
ates  more  strongly  in  infusing  a  love  of  country  into 
the  mass  of  the  people  than  the  union  of  a  national 
music  with  popular  poetry. 

But  these  productions  have  an  additional  value  in 
the  eyes  of  the  antiquarian  to  what  is  derived  from 
their  moral  or  political  influence,  as  the  repertory  of 
the  motley  traditions  and  superstitions  that  have  de¬ 
scended  for  ages  through  the  various  races  of  the 
North.  The  researches  of  modern  scholars  have 
discovered  a  surprising  affinity  between  the  ancient 

4  F 


594  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

Scottish  ballad  and  the  Teutonic,  Scandinavian,  and 
even  Calmuck  romance.  Some  of  the  most  eminent 
of  the  old  Border  legends  are  almost  literal  versions 
of  those  which  inflamed  the  martial  ardour  of  our 
Danish  ancestors.*  A  fainter  relationship  had  be¬ 
fore  been  detected  between  them  and  Southern  and 
Oriental  fable.  Thus,  in  a  barbarous  age,  when  the 
nearest  provinces  of  Europe  had  but  a  distant  inter¬ 
course  with  each  other,  the  electric  spark  of  fancy 
seems  to  have  run  around  the  circle  of  the  remotest 
regions,  animating  them  with  the  same  wild  and  ori¬ 
ginal  creations. 

Even  the  lore  of  the  nursery  may  sometimes  as¬ 
cend  to  as  high  an  antiquity.  The  celebrated  Whit¬ 
tington  and  his  Cat  can  display  a  Teutonic  pedigree 
of  more  than  eight  centuries;  “Jack,  commonly 
called  the  Giant  Killer,  and  Thomas  Thumb,”  says 
an  antiquarian  writer,  “  landed  in  England  from  the 
very  same  keels  and  war-ships  which  conveyed 
Hengist  and  Horsa,  and  Ebba  the  Saxon and  the 
nursery-maid  who  chants  the  friendly  monition  to 
the  “Lady-bird,”  or  narrates  the  “fee-faw-fum”  ad¬ 
venture  of  the  carnivorous  giant,  little  thinks  she  has 
purloined  the  stores  of  Teutonic  song  and  Scandi¬ 
navian  mythology.f  The  ingenious  Blanco  White, 

*  Such  are  “The  Childe  of  Elle,”  “Catharine  and  Janfarie,”  “  Cos- 
patric,”  “  Willie’s  Lady,”  &c. 

“  Lady-bird,  lady-bird,  fly  away  home, 

Your  house  is  on  fire,  your  children  will  roam.” 

This  fragment  of  a  respectable  little  poem  has  soothed  the  slumbers 
of  the  German  infant  for  many  ages.  The  giant  who  so  cunningly  scent¬ 
ed  the  “blood  of  an  Englishman”  is  the  counterpart  of  the  personage 


SCOTTISH  SONG. 


595 


who,  under  the  name  of  Doblado,  has  thrown  great 
light  on  the  character  and  condition  of  modern 
Spain,  has  devoted  a  chapter  to  tracing  out  the  ge¬ 
nealogies  of  the  games  and  popular  pastimes  of  his 
country.  Something  of  the  same  kind  might  be  at¬ 
tempted  in  the  untrodden  walks  of  nursery  litera¬ 
ture.  Ignorance  and  youth  are  satisfied  at  no  great 
cost  of  invention.  The  legend  of  one  generation 
answers,  with  little  variation,  for  the  next,  and,  with¬ 
in  the  precincts  of  the  nursery,  obtains  that  imper¬ 
ishable  existence  which  has  been  the  vain  boast  of 
many  a  loftier  lyric.  That  the  mythology  of  one 
age  should  be  abandoned  to  the  “Juvenile  Cabinet” 
of  another,  is  indeed  curious.  Thus  the  doctrines 
most  venerated  by  man  in  the  infancy  of  society  be¬ 
come  the  sport  of  infants  in  an  age  of  civilization, 
furnishing  a  pleasing  example  of  the  progress  of  the 
human  intellect,  and  a  plausible  colouring  for  the 
dream  of  perfectibility. 

recorded  in  the  collection  of  Icelandic  mythology  made  by  Snorro  in  the 
thirteenth  century. — Edda ,  Fable  23. 


596  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


DA  PONTE’S  OBSERVATIONS* 

JULY,  18  25. 

The  larger  part  of  the  above  work  is  devoted  to 
strictures  upon  an  article  on  “Italian  Narrative  Po¬ 
etry,”  which  appeared  in  October,  1824.  The  au¬ 
thor  is  an  eminent  Italian  teacher  at  New-York. 
His  poetical  abilities  have  been  highly  applauded  in 
his  own  country,  and  were  rewarded  with  the  office 
of  Caesarean  poet  at  the  court  of  Vienna,  where  he 
acquired  new  laurels  as  successor  to  the  celebrated 
Metastasio.  His  various  fortunes  in  literary  and 
fashionable  life  while  in  Europe,  and  the  eccentrici¬ 
ties  of  his  enthusiastic  character,  furnish  many  in¬ 
teresting  incidents  for  an  autobiography,  published 
by  him  two  years  since  at  New-York,  and  to  this 
we  refer  those  of  our  readers  who  are  desirous  of  a 
more  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  author. 

We  regret  that  our  remarks,  which  appeared  to 
us  abundantly  encomiastic  of  Italian  letters,  and 
which  certainly  proceeded  from  our  admiration  for 
them,  should  have  given  such  deep  offence  to  the 
respectable  author  of  the  “  Osservazioni,”  as  to  com¬ 
pel  him,  although  a  “  veteran”  in  literature,  to  arm 
himself  against  us  in  defence  of  his  “  calumniated” 
country.  According  to  him,  “  we  judge  too  lightly 
of  the  Italians,  and  quote  as  axioms  the  absurd  opin- 

*  “Alcune  Osservazioni  sull’  Articulo  Quarto  publicato  nel  North 
American  Review,  il  Mese  d’Ottobre  dell’  Anno  1824.  Da  L.  Da  Ponte. 
Nuova-Jorca.  Stampatori  Gray  e  Bunce.”  1825. 


da  ponte’s  observations.  597 

ions  of  their  insane  rivals  (accaniti  rivali),  the 
French.  We  conceal  some  things  where  silence 
has  the  appearance  of  malice  ;  we  expose  others 
which  common  generosity  should  have  induced  us 
to  conceal ;  we  are  guilty  of  false  and  arbitrary  ac- 
cusations,  that  do  a  grievous  wrong  to  the  most 
tender  and  most  compassionate  of  nations  ;  we  are 
wanting  in  a  decent  reverence  for  the  illustrious  men 
of  his  nation  ;  finally,  we  pry  with  the  eyes  of  Argus 
into  the  defects  of  Italian  literature,  and  with  one 
eye  only,  and  that,  indeed,  half  shut  (anche  quello 
socchiuso ),  into  its  particular  merits.”  It  is  true,  this 
sour  rebuke  is  sweetened  once  or  twice  with  a  com¬ 
pliment  to  the  extent  of  our  knowledge,  and  a  “  con¬ 
fession  that  many  of  our  reasonings,  facts,  and  re¬ 
flections  merit  the  gratitude  of  his  countrymen  ;  that 
our  intentions  were  doubtless  generous,  praisewor¬ 
thy,’*  and  the  like ;  but  such  vague  commendations, 
besides  that  they  are  directly  inconsistent  with  some 
of  the  imputations  formerly  alleged  against  us,  are 
too  thinly  scattered  over  sixty  pages  of  criticism  to 
mitigate  very  materially  the  severity  of  the  censure. 
The  opinions  of  the  author  of  the  Osservazioni  on 
this  subject  are  undoubtedly  entitled  to  great  respect ; 
but  it  may  be  questioned  whether  the  excitable  tem¬ 
perament  usual  with  his  nation,  and  the  local  par¬ 
tiality  which  is  common  to  the  individuals  of  every 
nation,  may  not  have  led  him  sometimes  into  extrav¬ 
agance  and  error.  This  seems  to  us  to  have  been 
the  case  ;  and  as  he  has  more  than  once  intimated 
the  extreme  difficulty  of  forming  a  correct  estimate 


598  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


of  a  foreign  literature,  “  especially  of  the  Italian,”  we 
shall  rely  exclusively  for  the  support  of  our  opinions 
on  the  authorities  of  his  own  country  men,  claiming 
one  exception  only  in  favour  of  the  industrious  Gin- 
guene,  whose  opinions  he  has  himself  recommended 
to  “  the  diligent  study  of  all  who  would  form  a  cor- 
rect  notion  of  Italian  literature.”* 

His  first  objection  is  against  what  he  considers 
the  unfair  view  which  we  exhibited  of  the  influence 
of  Italv  on  English  letters.  This  influence,  we  had 
stated,  was  most  perceptible  under  the  reign  of  Eliz¬ 
abeth,  but  had  gradually  declined  during  the  suc¬ 
ceeding  century,  and,  with  a  few  exceptions,  among 
whom  we  cited  Milton  and  Gray,  could  not  be  said 

J  7 

to  be  fairly  discerned  until  the  commencement  of 

J 

the  present  age.  Our  censor  is  of  a  different  opin¬ 
ion.  “  Instead  of  confining  himself ’  (he  designates 
us  always  by  this  humble  pronoun)  “  to  Milton,”  he 
says,  “  for  which  exception  I  acknowledge  no  obliga¬ 
tion  to  him,  since  few  there  are  who  were  not  pre¬ 
viously  acquainted  with  it,  I  would  have  had  him 
acknowledge  that  many  English  writers  not  only 
loved  and  admired,  but  studiously  imitated  our  au¬ 
thors,  from  the  time  of  Chaucer  to  that  of  the  great 
By  ron  ;  for  the  clearest  evidence  of  which  it  will  suf¬ 
fice  to  read  the  compositions  of  this  last  poet,  of 
Milton,  and  of  Gray.  He  then  censures  us  for  not 
specifying  the  obligations  which  Shakspeare  was 

*  “  Ma  bisognava  aver  l’anima  di  Ginguene,  conoscer  la  lingua  e  la  let- 
teratura  Italiana,  come  Ginguene,  e  amar  il  vero  come  Ginguene,  per  sen- 
tire,”  &c. — Osscrvazioni,  p.  115,  116. 


DA  PONTE’S  OBSERVATIONS. 


599 


under  to  the  early  Italian  novelists  for  the  plots  of 
many  of  his  pieces  ;  “which  silence”  he  deems  “as 
little  to  be  commended  as  would  he  an  attempt  to 
conceal  the  light,  the  most  beautiful  prerogative  of 
the  sun,  from  one  who  had  never  before  seen  it. 
And,”  he  continues,  “  these  facts  should,  for  two  rea* 
sons,  have  been  especially  communicated  to  Amer¬ 
icans :  first,  to  animate  them  more  and  more  to  study 
the  Italian  tongue;  and,  secondly,  in  order  not  to 
imitate,  by  what  may  appear  a  malicious  silence,  the 
example  of  another  nation  [the  French],  who,  after 
drawing  their  intellectual  nourishment  from  us,  have 
tried  every  method  of  destroying  the  reputation  of 
their  earliest  masters.” — P.  74-79. 

We  have  extracted  the  leading  ideas  diffused  by 
the  author  of  the  Osservazioni  over  half  a  dozen  pa¬ 
ges.  Some  of  them  have  at  least  the  merit  of  nov¬ 
elty.  Such  are  not,  however,  those  relating  to  Chau 
cer,  whom  we  believe  no  one  ever  doubted  to  have 
found  in  the  Tuscan  tongue — the  only  one  of  that 
rude  age  in  which 

“  The  pure  well-head  of  poesie  did  dwell” — 

one  principal  source  of  his  premature  inspiration. 
We  acknowledged  that  the  same  sources  nourished 
the  genius  of  Queen  Elizabeth’s  writers,  among 
whom  w7e  particularly  cited  the  names  of  Surrey, 
Sidney,  and  Spenser.  And  if  we  did  not  distin¬ 
guish  Shakspeare  amid  the  circle  of  contemporary 
dramatists  whom  we  confessed  to  have  derived  the 
designs  of  many  of  their  most  popular  plays  from 
Italian  models,  it  was  because  wre  did  not  think  i!jo 


600  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

extent  of  his  obligations,  amounting  to  half  a  dozen 
imperfect  skeletons  of  plots,  required  any  such  spe¬ 
cification  ;  more  especially  as  several  of  his  great 
minor  contemporaries,  as  Fletcher,  Shirley,  and  oth¬ 
ers,  made  an  equally  liberal  use  of  the  same  mate¬ 
rials.  The  obligations  of  Shakspeare,  such  as  they 
were,  are,  moreover,  notorious  to  every  one.  The 
author  of  the  Osservazioni  expressly  disclaims  any 
feelings  of  gratitude  towards  us  for  mentioning  those 
of  Milton,  because  they  were  notorious.  It  is  really 
very  hard  to  please  him.  The  literary  enterprise 
which  had  been  awakened  under  the  reign  of  Eliza¬ 
beth  was  in  no  degree  diminished  under  her  suc¬ 
cessor  ;  but  the  intercourse  with  Italy,  so  favourable 
to  it  at  an  earlier  period,  was,  for  obvious  reasons,  at 
an  end.  A  Protestant  people,  but  lately  separated 
from  the  Church  of  Rome,  would  not  deign  to  resort 
to  what  they  believed  her  corrupt  fountains  for  the 
sources  of  instruction.  The  austerity  of  the  Puritan 
was  yet  more  scandalized  by  the  voluptuous  beauties 
of  her  lighter  compositions,  and  Milton,  whose  name 
we  cited  in  our  article,  seems  to  have  been  a  solitary 
exception  on  the  records  of  that  day,  of  an  eminent 
English  scholar  thoroughly  imbued  with  a  relish  for 
Italian  letters. 

After  the  days  of  civil  and  religious  faction  had 
gone  by,  a  new  aspect  was  given  to  things  under  the 
brilliant  auspices  of  the  Restoration.  The  French 
language  was  at  that  time  in  the  meridian  of  its 
glory.  Boileau,  with  an  acute  but  pedantic  taste, 
had  draughted  his  critical  ordinances  from  the  most 


da  ponte’s  observations.  601 

perfect  models  of  classical  antiquity.  Racine,  work¬ 
ing  on  these  principles,  may  be  said  to  have  put  into 
action  the  poetic  conceptions  of  his  friend  Boileau; 
and,  with  such  a  model  to  illustrate  the  excellence  of 
his  theory,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  the  code  of  the 
French  legislator,  recommended,  as  it  was,  too,  by 
the  patronage  of  the  most  imposing  court  in  Europe, 
should  have  found  its  way  into  the  rival  kingdom, 
and  have  superseded  there  every  other  foreign  influ¬ 
ence.*  It  did  so.  “  French  criticism,”  says  Bishop 
Hurd,  speaking  of  this  period,  “  has  carried  it  before 
the  Italian  with  the  rest  of  Europe.  This  dexterous 
people  have  found  means  to  lead  the  taste,  as  well 

as  set  the  fashions,  of  their  neighbours.”  Again  : 

_  ’  _  ^ 

“  The  exact  but  cold  Boileau  happened  to  say  some¬ 
thing  of  the  clinquant  of  Tasso,  and  the  magic  of 
this  word,  like  the  report  of  Astolfo’s  horn  in  Arios¬ 
to,  overturned  at  once  the  solid  and  well-built  found¬ 
ation  of  Italian  poetry :  it  became  a  sort  of  watch¬ 
word  among  the  critics.”  Mr.  Gifford,  whose  ac¬ 
quaintance  with  the  ancient  literature  of  his  nation 
entitles  him  to  perfect  confidence  on  this  subject, 
whatever  we  may  be  disposed  to  concede  to  him  on 
some  others,  in  his  introduction  to  Massinger  re¬ 
marks,  in  relation  to  this  period,  that  “  criticism, 
which  in  a  former  reign  had  been  making  no  incon- 

*  Boileau’s  sagacity  in  fully  appreciating  the  merits  of  Phedre  and  of 
Athalie,  and  his  independence  in  supporting  them  against  the  fashionable 
factions  of  the  day,  are  well  known.  But  he  conferred  a  still  greater  ob¬ 
ligation  on  his  friend.  Racine  the  younger  tells  us  that  “  his  father,  in 
his  youth,  was  given  to  a  vicious  taste  {concetti),  and  that  Boileau  led  him 
back  to  nature,  and  taught  him  to  rhyme  with  labour  {rimer  dijicilemcnt).” 

4  G 


602  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

siderable  progress  under  the  great  masters  of  Italy, 
was  now  diverted  into  a  new  channel,  and  only 
studied  under  the  puny  and  jejune  canons  of  their 
degenerate  followers,  the  French.”  Pope  and  Ad¬ 
dison,  the  legislators  of  their  own  and  a  future  age, 
cannot  be  exempted  from  this  reproach.  The  latter 
conceived  and  published  the  most  contemptuous 
opinion  of  the  Italians.  In  a  very  early  paper  of 
the  Spectator  bearing  his  own  signature  (No.  6),  he 
observes,  “  The  finest  writers  among  the  modern 
Italians  [in  contradistinction  to  the  ancient  Romans] 
express  themselves  in  such  a  florid  form  of  words, 
and  such  tedious  circumlocutions,  as  are  used  by 
none  but  pedants  in  our  own  country,  and  at  the 
same  time  fill  their  writings  with  such  poor  imagi¬ 
nations  and  conceits  as  our  youths  are  ashamed  of 
before  they  have  been  two  years  at  the  University.” 
In  the  same  paper  he  adds,  “  I  entirely  agree  with 
Monsieur  Boileau,  that  one  verse  of  Virgil  is  worth 
all  the  tinsel  of  Tasso.”  This  is  very  unequivocal 
language,  and  our  censor  will  do  us  the  justice  to 
believe  that  we  do  not  quote  it  from  any  “  malicious 
intention,”  but  simply  to  show  what  must  have  been 
the  popular  taste,  when  sentiments  like  these  were 
promulgated  by  a  leading  critic  of  the  day,  in  the 
most  important  and  widely-circulated  journal  in  the 
kingdom.* 

*  Addison  tells  us,  in  an  early  number  of  the  Spectator,  that  three  thou¬ 
sand  copies  were  daily  distributed  ;  and  Chalmers  somewhere  remarks, 
that  this  circulation  was  afterward  increased  to  fourteen  thousand  ;  an 
amount,  in  proportion  to  the  numerical  population  and  intellectual  culture 
of  that  day,  very  far  superior  to  that  of  the  most  popular  journals  at  the 
present  time. 


da  ponte’s  observations. 


603 


In  conformity  with  this  anti-Italian  spirit,  we  find 
that  no  translation  of  Ariosto  was  attempted  subse¬ 
quent  to  the  very  imperfect  one  by  Harrington  in 
Elizabeth’s  time.  In  the  reign  of  George  the  Sec¬ 
ond  a  new  version  was  published  by  one  Huggins. 
In  his  preface  he  observes,  “  After  this  work  was 
pretty  far  advanced,  I  was  informed  there  had  been 
a  translation  published  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and 
dedicated  to  that  queen;  whereupon  I  requested  a 
friend  to  obtain  a  sight  of  that  book,  for  it  is,  it  seems, 
very  scarce,  and  the  glorious  original  much  more  so 
in  this  country.”  Huggins  was  a  learned  scholar, 
although  he  made  a  bad  translation.  Yet  it  seems 
he  had  never  met  with,  or  even  heard  of,  the  version 
of  his  predecessor  Harrington.  But,  without  encum¬ 
bering  ourselves  with  authorities,  a  glance  at  the 
compositions  of  the  period  in  question  would  show 
how  feeble  are  the  pretensions  of  an  Italian  influence, 
and  we  are  curious  to  know  what  important  names, 
or  productions,  or  characteristics  can  be  cited  by  the 
author  of  the  Osservazioni  in  support  of  it.  Dryden, 
whom  he  has  objected  to  us,  versified,  it  is  true, 
three  of  his  Fables  from  Boccaccio;  but  this  brief 
effort  is  the  only  evidence  we  can  recall,  in  the  mul¬ 
titude  of  his  miscellaneous  writings,  of  a  respect  for 
Italian  letters,  and  he  is  well  known  to  have  power¬ 
fully  contributed  to  the  introduction  of  a  French 
taste  in  the  drama.  The  only  exception  which  oc¬ 
curs  to  our  general  remark  is  that  afforded  by  the 
Metaphysical  School  of  Poets,  whose  vicious  pro¬ 
pensities  have  been  referred  by  Dr.  Johnson  to  Ma 


604  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

rini  and  his  followers.  But  as  an  ancient  English 
model  for  this  affectation  may  be  found  in  Donne, 
and  as  the  doctor  was  not  prodigal  of  golden  opin¬ 
ions  towards  Italy,  we  will  not  urge  upon  our  oppo¬ 
nent  what  may  be  deemed  an  ungenerous,  perhaps 
an  unjust  imputation.  The  same  indifference  ap¬ 
pears  to  have  lasted  the  greater  portion  of  the  eigh¬ 
teenth  century,  and  with  few  exceptions,  enumerated 
in  our  former  article,  the  Tuscan  spring  seems  to 
have  been  almost  hermetically  sealed  against  the 
English  scholar.  The  increasing  thirst  for  every 
variety  of  intellectual  nourishment  in  our  age  has 
again  invited  to  these  early  sources,  and  while  every 
modern  tongue  has  been  anxiously  explored  by  the 
diligence  of  critics,  the  Italian  has  had  the  good  for¬ 
tune  to  be  more  widely  and  more  successfully  culti¬ 
vated  than  at  any  former  period.  U 

We  should  apologize  to  our  readers  for  afflicting 
them  with  so  much  commonplace  detail,  but  we 
know  no  other  way  of  rebutting  the  charge,  which, 
according  to  the  author  of  the  Osservazioni,  might 
be  imputed  to  us,  of  a  “  malicious  silence”  in  our  ac¬ 
count  of  the  influence  of  Italian  letters  in  England. 

But  if  we  have  offended  by  saying  too  little  on 
the  preceding  head,  we  have  given  equal  offence  on 
another  occasion  by  saying  too  much ;  our  antago¬ 
nist  attacks  us  from  such  opposite  quarters  that  we 
hardly  know  where  to  expect  him.  We  had  spo¬ 
ken,  and  in  terms  of  censure,  of  Boileau’s  celebrated 
sarcasm  upon  Tasso  ;  and  we  had  added  that,  not¬ 
withstanding  an  affected  change  of  opinion,  “  he  ad- 


da  ponte’s  observations. 


605 


hered  until  the  time  of  his  death  to  his  original  her¬ 
esy.”  “As  much,”  says  our  censor,  “as  it  would 
have  been  desirable  in  him  [the  reviewer]  to  have 
spoken  on  these  other  matters,  so  it  would  have  been 
equally  proper  to  have  suppressed  all  that  Boileau 
wrote  upon  Tasso,  together  with  the  remarks  made 
'  by  him  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  as  having  a  ten¬ 
dency  to  prejudice  unfavourably  the  minds  of  such 
as  had  not  before  heard  them.  Nor  should  he  have 
coldly  styled  it  his  ‘  original  heresy ;’  but  he  should 
have  said  that,  in  spite  of  all  the  heresies  of  Boileau 
and  all  the  blunders  of  Voltaire,  the  Jerusalem  has 
been  regarded  for  more  than  two  centuries  and  a 
half,  and  will  be  regarded,  as  long  as  the  earth  has 
motion,  by  all  the  nations  of  the  civilized  world,  as 
the  most  noble,  most  magnificent,  most  sublime  epic 
produced  for  more  than  eighteen  centuries ;  that 
this  consent  and  this  duration  of  its  splendour  are 
the  strongest  and  most  authentic  seal  of  its  incontro¬ 
vertible  merit ;  that  this  unlucky  clinquant ,  that  de¬ 
faces  at  most  a  hundred  verses  of  this  poem,  and 
which,  in  fact,  is  nothing  but  an  excess  of  over¬ 
wrought  beauty,  is  but  the  merest  flaw  in  a  mount¬ 
ain  of  diamonds ;  that  these  hundred  verses  are  com¬ 
pensated  by  more  than  three  thousand,  in  which  are 
displayed  all  the  perfection,  grace,  learning,  elo¬ 
quence,  and  colouring  of  the  loftiest  poetry.”  In  the 
same  swell  of  commendation  the  author  proceeds 
for  half  a  page  farther.  We  know  not  what  inad¬ 
vertence  on  our  part  can  have  made  it  necessary,  by 
way  of  reproof  to  us,  to  pour  upon  Tasso’s  head  such 


606  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

a  pelting  of  pitiless  panegyric.  Among  all  the  Ital¬ 
ian  poets,  there  is  no  one  for  whom  we  have  ever 
felt  so  sincere  a  veneration,  after 

“  quel  signor  dell’  altissimo  canto 
Che  sovra  gli  altri,  com’  aquila  vola,” 

as  for  Tasso.  In  some  respects  he  is  even  superior 
to  Dante.  His  writings  are  illustrated  by  a  purer 
morality,  as  his  heart  was  penetrated  with  a  more 
genuine  spirit  of  Christianity.  Oppression,  under 
which  they  both  suffered  the  greater  part  of  their 
lives,  wrought  a  very  different  effect  upon  the  gentle 
character  of  Tasso  and  the  vindictive  passions  of 
the  Ghibelline.  The  religious  wars  of  Jerusalem, 
exhibiting  the  triumphs  of  the  Christian  chivalry, 
were  a  subject  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  character 
of  the  poet,  who  united  the  qualities  of  an  accom¬ 
plished  knight  with  the  most  unaffected  piety.  The 
vulgar  distich,  popular  in  his  day  with  the  common 
people  of  Ferrara,  is  a  homely  but  unsuspicious  tes¬ 
timony  to  his  opposite  virtues.*  His  greatest  fault 
was  an  ill-regulated  sensibility,  and  his  greatest  mis- 

*  “  Colla  penna  e  colla  spada, 

Nessun  val  quanto  Torquato.” 

This  elegant  couplet  was  made  in  consequence  of  a  victory  obtained 
by  Tasso  over  three  cavaliers,  who  treacherously  attacked  him  in  one  of 
the  public  squares  of  Ferrara.  His  skill  in  fencing  is  notorious,  and  his 
passion  for  it  is  also  betrayed  by  the  frequent,  circumstantial,  and  mas¬ 
terly  pictures  of  it  in  his  “Jerusalem.”  See,  in  particular,  the  mortal 
combat  between  Tancred  and  Argante,  can.  xix.,  where  all  the  evolutions 
of  the  art  are  depicted  with  the  accuracy  of  a  professed  sword-player. 
In  the  same  manner,  the  numerous  and  animated  allusions  to  field-sports 
betray  the  favourite  pastime  of  the  author  of  Waverley  ;  and  the  falcon, 
the  perpetual  subject  of  illustration  and  simile  in  the  “  Divina  Comme- 
dia,”  might  lead  us  to  suspect  a  similar  predilection  in  Dante. 


da  ponte’s  observations.  607 

fortune  was  to  have  been  thrown  among  people  who 
knew  not  how  to  compassionate  the  infirmities  of 
genius.  In  contemplating  such  a  character,  one 
may,  without  affectation,  feel  a  disposition  to  draw  a 
veil  over  the  few  imperfections  that  tarnished  it,  and 
in  our  notice  of  it,  expanded  into  a  dozen  pages, 
there  are  certainly  not  the  same  number  of  lines  de¬ 
voted  to  his  defects,  and  those  exclusively  of  a  liter¬ 
ary  nature.  This  is  but  a  moderate  allowance  for 
the  transgressions  of  any  man ;  yet,  according  to 
Mr.  Da  Ponte,  “  we  close  our  eyes  against  the  merits 
of  his  countrymen,  and  pry  with  those  of  Argus  into 
their  defects.” 

But  why  are  we  to  be  debarred  the  freedom  of 
criticism  enjoyed  even  by  the  Italians  themselves'? 
To  read  the  Osservazioni ,  one  w^ould  conclude  that 
Tasso,  from  his  first  appearance,  had  united  all  suf¬ 
frages  in  his  favour;  that,  by  unanimous  acclama¬ 
tion,  his  poem  had  been  placed  at  the  head  of  all 
the  epics  of  the  last  eighteen  centuries,  and  that  the 
only  voice  raised  against  him  had  sprung  from  the 
petty  rivalries  of  French  criticism,  from  which  source 
we  are  more  than  once  complimented  with  having 
recruited  our  own  forces.  Does  our  author  reckon 
for  nothing  the  reception  with  which  the  first  acad¬ 
emy  in  Italy  greeted  the  Jerusalem  on  its  introduc¬ 
tion  into  the  world,  when  they  would  have  smother¬ 
ed  it  wfith  the  kindness  of  their  criticism  ?  Or  the 
volumes  of  caustic  commentary  by  the  celebrated 
Galileo,  almost  every  line  of  which  is  a  satire  ?  Or, 
to  descend  to  a  later  period,  when  the  lapse  of  more 


608  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

than  a  century  may  be  supposed  to  have  rectified 
the  caprice  of  contemporary  judgments,  may  we  not 
shelter  ourselves  under  the  authorities  of  Andres,* 
whose  favourable  notice  of  Italian  letters  our  author 
cites  with  deference  ;  of  Metastasio,  the  avowed  ad¬ 
mirer  and  eulogist  of  Tasso  ;f  of  Gravina,  whose 
philosophical  treatise  on  the  principles  of  poetry,  a 
work  of  great  authority  in  his  own  country,  exhibits 
the  most  ungrateful  irony  on  the  literary  pretensions 
of  Tasso,  almost  refusing  to  him  the  title  of  a  poet.J 
But,  to  proceed  no  farther,  we  may  abide  by  the 
solid  judgment  of  Ginguene,  that  second  Daniel, 
whose  opinions  we  are  advised  so  strenuously  “  to 
study  and  to  meditate.”  “  As  to  florid  images,  friv¬ 
olous  thoughts,  affected  turns,  conceits,  and  jeux  de 
mots ,  they  are  to  be  found  in  greater  abundance  in 
Tasso’s  poem  than  is  commonly  imagined.  The 
enumeration  of  them  would  be  long,  if  one  should 
run  over  the  Jerusalem  and  cite  all  that  could  be 
classed  under  one  or  other  of  these  heads,  &c.  Let 
us  content  ourselves  with  a  few  examples.”  He 
then  devotes  ten  pages  to  these  few  examples  (our 
author  is  indignant  that  we  should  have  bestowed  as 
many  lines),  and  closes  with  this  sensible  reflection  : 
“  I  have  not  promised  a  blind  faith  in  the  writers  I 
admire  the  most ;  I  have  not  promised  it  to  Boileau, 
I  have  not  promised  it  to  Tasso;  and  in  literature 
we  all  owe  our  faith  and  homage  to  the  eternal  laws 
of  truth,  of  nature,  and  of  taste.”§ 

*  Dell’  Origine,  &c.,  d’Ogni  Lett.,  tom.  iv.,  p.  250. 

t  Opere  Postume  di  Metastasio,  tom.  iii.,  p.  30. 

t  Ragion  Poetica,  p.  161,  162.  §  Tom.  v.,  p.  368,  378. 


DA  PONTE’S  OBSERVATIONS. 


609 


But,  in  order  to  relieve  Tasso  from  an  undue  re¬ 
sponsibility,  we  had  stated  in  our  controverted  arti¬ 
cle  that  “the  affectations  imputed  to  him  were  to  he 
traced  to  a  much  more  remote  origin that  “  Pe¬ 
trarch’s  best  productions  were  stained  with  them,  as 
were  those  of  preceding  poets,  and  that  they  seem¬ 
ed  to  have  flowed  directly  from  the  Proven^ale,  the 
fountain  of  Italian  lyric  poetry.”  This  transfer  of 
the  sins  of  one  poet  to  the  door  of  another  is  not  a 
whit  more  to  the  approbation  of  our  censor,  and  he 
not  only  flatly  denies  the  truth  of  our  remark,  as  ap¬ 
plied  to  “Petrarch’s  best  productions,"  but  gravely 
pronounces  it  “one  of  the  most  solemn,  the  tnost 
horrible  literary  blasphemies  that  ever  proceeded 
from  the  tongue  or  pen  of  mortal  !”*  “  I  maintain,” 

says  he,  “that  not  one  of  those  that  are  truly  Pe¬ 
trarch’s  best  productions,  and  there  are  very  many, 
can  be  accused  of  such  a  defect ;  let  but  the  critic 
point  me  out  a  single  affected  or  vicious  expression 
in  the  three  patriotic  Canzoni,  or  in  the  Chiare 
fresche  e  dolci  acque ,  or  in  the  Tre  Sorellc &c.  (he 
names  several  others),  “  or,  in  truth,  in  any  of  the 
rest,  excepting  one  or  two  only.”  He  then  recom¬ 
mends  to  us  that,  “  instead  of  hunting  out  the  errors 
and  blemishes  of  these  masters  of  our  intellects,  and 
occupying  ourselves  with  unjust  and  unprofitable 
criticism,  we  should  throw  over  them  the  mantle  of 
gratitude,  and  recompense  them  with  our  eulogiums 

*  “  Dird  essere  questa  una  delle  piu  solenni,  delle  piu  orribili  letterarie 
bestemmie,  che  sia  stata  mai  pronunziata  o  scritta  da  lingua  o  penna 
mortale.” — P.  94. 

4  H 


610  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


and  applause.”  In  conformity  with  which,  the  au¬ 
thor  proceeds  to  pour  out  his  grateful  tribute  on  the 
head  of  the  ancient  laureate  for  two  pages  farther, 
but  which,  as  not  material  to  the  argument,  we  must 
omit. 

We  know  no  better  way  of  answering  all  this 
than  by  taking  up  the  gauntlet  thrown  down  to  us, 
and  we  are  obliged  to  him  for  giving  us  the  means 
of  bringing  the  matter  to  so  speedy  an  issue.  We 
will  take  one  of  the  first  Canzoni,  of  which  he  has 
challenged  our  scrutiny.  It  is  in  Petrarch’s  best 
manner,  and  forms  the  first  of  a  series,  which  has 
received  /car’  e|o^v,  the  title  of  the  Three  Sisters 
( Tre  Sorelle ).  It  is  indited  to  his  mistress’s  eyes, 
and  the  first  stanza  contains  a  beautiful  invocation 
to  these  sources  of  a  lover’s  inspiration ;  but  in  the 
second  we  find  him  relapsing  into  the  genuine  Pro- 
ven9ale  heresy : 

“  When  I  become  snow  before  their  burning  rays , 

Your  noble  pride 

Is  perhaps  offended  with  my  unworthiness. 

Oh  !  if  this  my  apprehension 

Should  not  temper  the  flame  that  consumes  me , 

Happy  should  I  be  to  dissolve ;  since  in  their  presence 
It  is  dearer  to  me  to  die  than  to  live  without  them. 

Then,  that  I  do  not  melt , 

Being  so  frail  an  object,  before  so  potent  a  fire, 

It  is  not  my  own  strength  which  saves  me  from  it, 

But  principally  fear, 

Which  congeals  the  blood  wandering  through  my  veins. 

And  mends  the  heart  that  it  may  burn  a  long  time.”* 

*  “  Quando  agli  ardenti  rai  neve  divegno  ; 

Vostro  gentile  sdegno 

Forse  ch’  allor  mia  indegnitate  offende. 

0,  se  questa  temenza 


611 


DA  Ponte’s  OBSERVATIONS. 

This  melancholy  parade  of  cold  conceits,  of  fire 
and  snow,  thawing  and  freezing,  is  extracted,  be  it 
observed,  from  one  of  those  choice  productions 
which  is  recommended  as  without  a  blemish ;  in¬ 
deed,  not  only  is  it  one  of  the  best,  but  it  was  es¬ 
teemed  by  Petrarch  himself,  together  with  its  two 
sister  odes,  the  very  best  of  his  lyrical  pieces,  and 
the  decision  of  the  poet  has  been  ratified  by  poster¬ 
ity.  Let  it  not  be  objected  that  the  spirit  of  an  ode 
must  necessarily  evaporate  in  a  prose  translation. 
The  ideas  may  be  faithfully  transcribed,  and  we 
would  submit  it  to  the  most  ordinary  taste  whether 
ideas  like  those  above  quoted  can  ever  be  ennobled 
by  any  artifice  of  expression. 

We  think  the  preceding  extract  from  one  of  the 
“  best  of  Petrarch’s  compositions”  may  sufficiently 
vindicate  us  from  the  imputation  of  unprecedented 
“  blasphemy”  on  his  poetical  character ;  but,  lest  an 
appeal  be  again  made,  on  the  ground  of  a  diversity 
in  national  taste,  we  will  endeavour  to  fortify  our 
feeble  judgment  with  one  or  two  authorities  among 
his  own  countrymen,  whom  Mr.  Da  Ponte  may  be 
more  inclined  to  admit. 

The  Italians  have  exceeded  every  other  people  in 

Non  temprasse  I’  arsura  che  m’  incende  ; 

Beato  venir  men  !  che  ’n  lor  presenza 
M’  e  piu  caro  il  morir,  che  ’1  viver  senza. 

Dunque  ch’  i’  non  mi  sfaccia, 

Si  frale  oggetto  a  si  possente  foco, 

Non  e  proprio  valor,  che  me  ne  scampi ; 

Ma  la  paura  un  poco, 

Che  ’1  sangue  vago  per  le  vene  agghiaccia, 

Risalda  ’1  cor,  perche  piu  tempo  avvampi.” 

Canzone  vii.,  nclU  Edizione  di  Muratori. 


612  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

the  grateful  tribute  of  commentaries  which  they  have 
paid  to  the  writings  of  their  eminent  men  ;  some  of 
these  are  of  extraordinary  value,  especially  in  verbal 
criticism,  while  many  more,  by  the  contrary  lights 
which  they  shed  over  the  path  of  the  scholar,  serve 
rather  to  perplex  than  to  enlighten  it.*  Tassoni  and 
Muratori  are  accounted  among  the  best  of  Petrarch’s 
numerous  commentators,  and  the  latter,  in  particu¬ 
lar,  has  discriminated  his  poetical  character  with  as 
much  independence  as  feeling.  We  cannot  refrain 
from  quoting  a  few  lines  from  Muratori’s  preface,  as 
exceedingly  pertinent  to  our  present  purpose:  “Who, 
I  beg  to  ask,  is  so  pedantic,  so  blind  an  admirer  of 
Petrarch,  that  he  will  pretend  that  no  defects  are  to 
be  found  in  his  verses,  or,  being  found,  will  desire  they 
should  be  respected  with  a  religious  silence  ?  What¬ 
ever  may  be  our  rule  in  regard  to  moral  defects, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  in  those  of  art  and  sci¬ 
ence,  the  public  interest  requires  that  truth  should 
be  openly  unveiled,  since  it  is  important  that  all 
should  distinguish  the  beautiful  from  the  bad,  in  or¬ 
der  to  imitate  the  one  and  to  avoid  the  other.”f  In 

*  A  single  ode  has  furnished  a  repast  for  a  volume.  The  number  of 
Petrarch’s  commentators  is  incredible  ;  no  less  than  a  dozen  of  the  most 
eminent  Italian  scholars  have  been  occupied  with  annotations  upon  him 
at  the  same  time.  Dante  has  been  equally  fortunate.  A  noble  Floren¬ 
tine  projected  an  edition  of  a  hundred  volumes  for  the  hundred  cantos 
of  the  “  Commedia,”  which  should  embrace  the  different  illustrations. 
One  of  the  latest  of  the  fraternity,  Biagioli,  in  an  edition  of  Dante,  pub¬ 
lished  at  Paris,  1818,  not  only  claims  for  his  master  a  foreknowledge  of 
the  existence  of  America,  but  of  the  celebrated  Harveian  discovery  of  the 
circulation  of  the  blood  ! — Tom.  i.,  p.  18,  note.  After  this,  one  may  feel 
less  surprise  at  the  bulk  of  these  commentaries. 

t  Le  Rime  di  F.  Petrarca;  con  le  Osservazioni  di  Tassoni,  Muzio,  e 
Muratori.  Pref.,  p.  ix. 


da  ponte’s  observations.  613 

the  same  tone  speaks  Tirabosclii,  tom.  v.,  p.  474. 
Yet  more  to  the  purpose  is  an  observation  of  the 
Abbe  Denina  upon  Petrarch,  “who,”  says  he,  “not 
only  in  his  more  ordinary  sonnets  affords  obvious  ex¬ 
amples  of  affectation  and  coldness,  but  in  his  most 
tender  and  most  beautiful  compositions  approaches 
the  conceited  and  inflated  style  of  which  I  am  now 
speaking.”*  And  the  “impartial  Ginguene,”  a  name 
we  love  to  quote,  confesses  that  “  Petrarch  could  not 
deny  himself  those  puerile  antitheses  of  cold  and 
heat,  of  ice  and  flames,  which  occasionally  disfigure 
his  most  interesting  a?id  most  agreeable  pieces .”f  It 
would  be  easy  to  marshal  many  other  authorities  of 
equal  weight  in  our  defence,  but  obviously  superflu¬ 
ous,  since  those  we  have  adduced  are  quite  compe¬ 
tent  to  our  vindication  from  the  reproach,  somewhat 
severe,  of  having  uttered  “  the  most  horrible  blas¬ 
phemy  which  ever  proceeded  from  the  pen  of  mor¬ 
tal.” 

The  age  of  Petrarch,  like  that  of  Shakspeare, 
must  be  accountable  for  his  defects,  and  in  this  man¬ 
ner  we  may  justify  the  character  of  the  poet  where 
we  cannot  that  of  his  compositions.  The  Proven- 
sale,  the  most  polished  European  dialect  of  the  Mid¬ 
dle  Ages,  had  reached  its  last  perfection  before  the 
fourteenth  century.  Its  poetry,  chiefly  amatory  and 
lyrical,  may  be  considered  as  the  homage  offered  by 
the  high-bred  cavaliers  of  that  day  at  the  shrine  of 
beauty,  and,  of  whatever  value  for  its  literary  execu- 

*  Vicende  della  Letteratura,  tom.  ii.,  p.  55. 

t  Hist.  Lit.,  tom  ii.,  p.  566. 


614  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

tion,  is  interesting  for  the  beautiful  grace  it  diffuses 
over  the  iron  age  of  chivalry.  It  was,  as  we  have 
said,  principally  devoted  to  love  ;  those  who  did  not 
feel  could  at  least  affect  the  tender  passion  ;  and 
hence  the  influx  of  subtle  metaphors  and  frigid  con¬ 
ceits,  that  give  a  meretricious  brilliancy  to  most  of 
the  Provenqale  poetry.  The  fathers  of  Italian  verse, 
Guido,  Cino,  &c.,  seduced  by  the  fashion  of  the  pe¬ 
riod,  clothed  their  own  more  natural  sentiments  in 
the  same  vicious  forms  of  expression  ;  even  Dante, 
in  his  admiration,  often  avowed  for  the  Trouba¬ 
dours,  could  not  be  wholly  insensible  to  their  influ¬ 
ence  ;  but  the  less  austere  Petrarch,  both  from  con¬ 
stitutional  temperament  and  the  accidental  circum¬ 
stances  of  his  situation,  was  more  deeply  affected  by 
them.  In  the  first  place,  a  pertinacious  attachment 
to  a  mistress  whose  heart  was  never  warmed,  al¬ 
though  her  vanity  may  have  been  gratified  by  the 
adulation  of  the  finest  poet  of  the  age,  seems  to  have 
maintained  an  inexplicable  control  over  his  affec¬ 
tions,  or  his  fancy,  during  the  greater  portion  of  his 
life.  In  the  amatory  poetry  of  the  ancients,  polluted 
with  coarse  and  licentious  images,  he  could  find  no 
model  for  the  expression  of  this  sublimated  passion. 
But  the  Platonic  theory  of  love  had  been  imported 
into  Italy  by  the  fathers  of  the  Church,  and  Petrarch, 
better  schooled  in  ancient  learning  than  any  of  his 
contemporaries,  became  early  enamoured  of  the  spec¬ 
ulative  doctrines  of  the  Greek  philosophy.  To  this 
source  he  was  indebted  for  those  abstractions  and 
visionary  ecstasies  which  sometimes  give  a  generous 


DA  PONTE  S  OBSERVATIONS. 


615 


elevation,  bat  very  often  throw  a  cloud  over  his  con¬ 
ceptions.  And  again,  an  intimate  familiarity  with 
the  Proven9ale  poetry  was  the  natural  consequence 
of  his  residence  in  the  south  of  France.  There,  too, 
he  must  often  have  been  a  spectator  at  those  meta¬ 
physical  disputations  in  the  courts  of  love,  which  ex¬ 
hibited  the  same  ambition  of  metaphor,  studied  an¬ 
tithesis,  and  hyperbole,  as  the  written  compositions 
of  Provence.  To  all  these  causes  may  be  referred 
those  defects  which,  under  favour  be  it  spoken,  oc¬ 
casionally  offend  us,  even  “  in  his  most  perfect  com¬ 
positions.”  The  rich  finish  which  Petrarch  gave  to 
the  Tuscan  idiom  has  perpetuated  these  defects  in 
the  poetry  of  his  country.  Decipit  exemplar  vitiis 
imitabile.  His  beauties  were  inimitable,  but  to  copy 
his  errors  was  in  some  measure  to  tread  in  his  foot¬ 
steps,  and  a  servile  race  of  followers  sprang  up  in 
Italy,  who,  under  the  emphatic  name  of  Petrarchists, 
have  been  the  object  of  derision  or  applause,  as  a 
good  or  a  bad  taste  predominated  in  their  country. 
Warton,  with  apparent  justice,  refers  to  the  same 
source  some  of  the  early  corruptions  in  English  po¬ 
etry  ;  and  Petrarch — we  hope  it  is  not  “blasphemy” 
to  say  it — becomes,  by  the  very  predominance  of  his 
genius,  eminently  responsible  for  the  impurities  of 
diction  which  disfigure  some  of  the  best  productions 
both  in  English  literature  and  his  own. 

We  trust  that  the  free  manner  in  which  we  have 
spoken  will  not  be  set  down  by  the  author  of  the 
Osservazioni  to  a  malicious  desire  of  “  calumniating” 
the  literature  of  his  country.  We  have  been  neces- 


616  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

sarily  led  to  it  in  vindication  of  our  former  asser¬ 
tions.  After  an  interval  of  nearly  five  centuries,  the 
dispassionate  voice  of  posterity  has  awarded  to  Pe¬ 
trarch  the  exact  measure  of  censure  and  applause. 
We  have  but  repeated  their  judgment.  No  one  of 
the  illustrious  triumvirate  of  the  fourteenth  century 
can  pretend  to  have  possessed  so  great  an  influence 
over  his  own  age  and  over  posterity.  Dante,  sacri¬ 
ficed  by  a  faction,  was,  as  he  pathetically  complains, 
a  wandering  mendicant  in  a  land  of  strangers ;  Boc¬ 
caccio,  with  the  interval  of  a  few  years  in  the  me¬ 
ridian  of  his  life,  passed  from  the  gayety  of  a  court 
to  the  seclusion  of  a  cloister ;  but  Petrarch,  the 
friend,  the  minister  of  princes,  devoted,  during  the 
whole  of  his  long  career,  his  wealth,  his  wide  au¬ 
thority,  and  his  talents,  to  the  generous  cause  of 
philosophy  and  letters.  He  was  unwearied  in  his 
researches  after  ancient  manuscripts,  and  from  the 
most  remote  corners  of  Italy,  from  the  obscure  re¬ 
cesses  of  churches  and  monasteries,  he  painfully  col¬ 
lected  the  mouldering  treasures  of  antiquity.  Many 
of  them  he  copied  with  his  own  hand — among  the 
rest,  all  the  works  of  Cicero  ;  and  his  beautiful  tran¬ 
script  of  the  epistles  of  the  Roman  orator  is  still  pre¬ 
served  in  the  Laurentian  library  at  Florence.  In 
his  numerous  Latin  compositions  he  aspired  to  re¬ 
vive  the  purity  and  elegance  of  the  Augustan  age, 
and,  if  he  did  not  altogether  succeed  in  the  attempt, 
he  may  claim  the  merit  of  having  opened  the  soil 
for  the  more  successful  cultivation  of  later  Italian 
scholars. 


G 17 


DA  Ponte’s  OBSERVATIONS. 

His  own  efforts,  and  the  generous  impulse  which 
his  example  communicated  to  his  age,  have  justly 
entitled  him  to  be  considered  the  restorer  of  classical 
learning.  His  greatest  glory,  however,  is  derived 
from  the  spirit  of  life  which  he  breathed  into  mod¬ 
ern  letters.  Dante  had  fortified  the  Tuscan  idiom 
with  the  vigour  and  severe  simplicity  of  an  ancient 
language,  but  the  graceful  genius  of  Petrarch  was 
wanting  to  ripen  it  into  that  harmony  of  numbers 
which  has  made  it  the  most  musical  of  modern  dia¬ 
lects.  His  knowledge  of  the  Provenqale  enabled 
him  to  enrich  his  native  tongue  with  many  foreign 
beauties  ;  his  exquisite  ear  disposed  him  to  refuse  all 
but  the  most  melodious  combinations;  and,  at  the 
distance  of  five  hundred  years,  not  a  word  in  him 
has  become  obsolete,  not  a  phrase  too  quaint  to  be 
used.  Voltaire  has  passed  the  same  high  eulogium 
upon  Pascal;  but  Pascal  lived  three  centuries  later 
than  Petrarch.  It  would  be  difficult  to  point  out 
the  writer  who  so  far  fixed  the  zirea  nrspoevra ;  we 
certainly  could  not  assign  an  earlier  period  than  the 
commencement  of  the  last  century.  Petrarch’s  bril¬ 
liant  success  in  the  Italian  led  to  most  important 
consequences  all  over  Europe  by  the  evidence  which 
it  afforded  of  the  capacities  of  a  modern  tongue.  He 
relied,  however,  for  his  future  fame  on  his  elaborate 
Latin  compositions,  and,  while  he  dedicated  these 
to  men  of  the  highest  rank,  he  gave  away  his  Italian 
lyrics  to  ballad-mongers,  to  be  chanted  about  the 
streets  for  their  own  profit.  His  contemporaries 
authorized  this  judgment,  and  it  was  for  his  Latin 

4  I 


618  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

eclogues,  and  his  epic  on  Scipio  Africanus,  that  he 
received  the  laurel  wreath  of  poetry  in  the  Capitol. 
But  nature  must  eventually  prevail  over  the  decis¬ 
ions  of  pedantry  or  fashion.  By  one  of  those  fluc¬ 
tuations,  not  very  uncommon  in  the  history  of  let¬ 
ters,  the  author  of  the  Latin  “  Africa ”  is  now  known 
only  as  the  lover  of  Laura  and  the  father  of  Italian 
song. 

We  have  been  led  into  this  long,  we  fear  tedious 
exposition  of  the  character  of  Petrarch,  partly  from 
the  desire  of  defending  the  justice  of  our  former  crit¬ 
icism  against  the  heavy  imputations  of  the  author  of 
the  Osservazioni ,  and  partly  from  reluctance  to  dwell 
only  on  the  dark  side  of  a  picture  so  brilliant  as  that 
of  the  laureate,  who,  in  a  barbarous  age,  with 

“  his  rhetorike  so  swete 
Enluminid  all  Itaile  of  poetrie.” 

Our  limits  will  compel  us  to  pass  lightly  over 
some  less  important  strictures  of  our  author. 

About  the  middle  of  the  last  century  a  bitter  con¬ 
troversy  arose  between  Tiraboschi  and  Lampillas,  a 
learned  but  intemperate  Spaniard,  respecting  which 
of  their  two  nations  had  the  best  claim  to  the  re¬ 
proach  of  having  corrupted  the  other’s  literature  in 
the  sixteenth  century.  In  alluding  to  it,  we  had  re¬ 
marked  that  “  the  Italian  had  the  better  of  his  ad¬ 
versary  in  temper,  if  not  in  argument.”  The  author 
of  the  Osservazioni  styles  this  “  a  dry  and  dogmatic 
decision,  which  so  much  displeased  a  certain  Italian 
letterato  that  he  had  promised  him  a  confutation  of 
it.”  We  know  not  who  the  indignant  letterato  may 


da  ponte’s  observations.  619 

be  whose  thunder  has  been  so  long  hanging  over  us, 
but  we  must  say  that,  so  far  from  a  “  dogmatic  decis¬ 
ion,”  if  ever  we  made  a  circumspect  remark  in  our 
lives,  this  was  one.  As  far  as  it  went,  it  was  com¬ 
plimentary  to  the  Italians  ;  for  the  rest,  we  waived 
all  discussion  of  the  merits  of  the  controversy,  both 
because  it  was  impertinent  to  our  subject,  and  be¬ 
cause  we  were  not  sufficiently  instructed  in  the  de¬ 
tails  to  go  into  it.  One  or  two  reflections,  however, 
we  may  now  add.  The  relative  position  of  Italy 
and  Spain,  political  and  literary,  makes  it  highly 
probable  that  the  predominant  influence,  of  what¬ 
ever  kind  it  may  have  been,  proceeded  from  Italy. 
1.  She  had  matured  her  literature  to  a  high  perfec¬ 
tion  while  that  of  every  other  nation  was  in  its  in¬ 
fancy,  and  she  was,  of  course,  much  more  likely  to 
communicate  than  to  receive  impressions.  2.  Her 
political  relations  with  Spain  were  such  as  particu¬ 
larly  to  increase  this  probability  in  reference  to  her. 
The  occupation  of  an  insignificant  corner  of  her 
own  territory  (for  Naples  was  very  insignificant  in 
every  literary  aspect)  by  the  house  of  Aragon  open¬ 
ed  an  obvious  channel  for  the  transmission  of  her 
opinions  into  the  sister  kingdom.  3.  Any  one,  even 
an  Italian,  at  all  instructed  in  the  Spanish  literature, 
will  admit  that  this  actually  did  happen  in  the  reign 
of  Charles  the  Fifth,  the  golden  age  of  Italy;  that 
not  only,  indeed,  the  latter  country  influenced,  but 
changed  the  whole  complexion  of  Spanish  letters, 
establishing,  through  the  intervention  of  her  high- 
priests,  Boscan  and  Garcilaso,  what  is  universally 


620  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


recognised  under  the  name  of  an  Italian  school. 
This  was  an  era  of  good  taste  ;  but  when,  only  fifty 
years  later,  both  languages  were  overrun  with  those 
deplorable  affectations  which,  in  Italy  particularly, 
have  made  the  very  name  of  the  century  ( seicento ) 
a  term  of  reproach,  it  would  seem  probable  that  the 
same  country,  which  but  so  short  a  time  before  had 
possessed  so  direct  an  influence  over  the  other, 
should  through  the  same  channels  have  diffused  the 
poison  with  which  its  own  literature  was  infected. 
As  Marini  and  Gongora,  however,  the  reputed  found¬ 
ers  of  the  school,  were  contemporaries,  it  is  ex¬ 
tremely  difficult  to  adjust  the  precise  claims  of  either 
to  the  melancholy  credit  of  originality,  and,  after  all, 
the  question  to  foreigners  can  be  one  of  little  inter¬ 
est  or  importance. 

Much  curiosity  has  existed  respecting  the  source 
of  those  affectations  which,  at  different  periods,  have 
tainted  the  modern  languages  of  Europe.  Each  na¬ 
tion  is  ambitious  of  tracing  them  to  a  foreign  origin, 
and  all  have  at  some  period  or  other  agreed  to  find 
this  in  Italy.  From  this  quarter  the  French  critics 
derive  their  style  precieux ,  which  disappeared  before 
the  satire  of  Moliere  and  Boileau ;  from  this  the 
English  derive  their  metaphysical  school  of  Cowley  ; 
and  the  cultismo ,  of  which  we  have  been  speaking, 
which  Lope  and  Quevedo  condemned  by  precept, 
but  authorized  by  example,  is  referred  by  the  Span¬ 
iards  to  the  same  source.  The  early  celebrity  of 
Petrarch  and  his  vicious  imitators  may  afford  a  spe¬ 
cious  justification  of  all  this ;  but  a  generous  criti- 


DA  PONTE’S  OBSERVATIONS. 


621 


cism  may  perhaps  be  excused  in  referring  them  to  a 
more  ancient  origin.  The  Proven^ale  for  three  cen¬ 
turies  was  the  most  popular,  and,  as  we  have  before 
said,  the  most  polished  dialect  in  Europe.  The  lan¬ 
guage  of  the  people  all  along  the  fertile  Coasts  of  the 
Mediterranean,  it  was  also  the  language  of  poetry  in 
most  of  the  polite  courts  in  Europe ;  in  those  of 
Toulouse,  Provence,  Sicily,  and  of  several  in  Italy;  it 
reached  its  highest  perfection  under  the  Spanish  no¬ 
bles  of  Aragon  ;  it  passed  into  England  in  the  twelfth 
century  with  the  dowry  of  Eleanor  of  Guienne  and 
Poictou ;  even  kings  did  not  disdain  to  cultivate  it, 
and  the  lion-hearted  Richard,  if  report  be  true,  could 
embellish  the  rude  virtues  of  chivalry  with  the  mild¬ 
er  glories  of  a  Troubadour.*  When  this  precocious 
dialect  had  become  extinct,  its  influence  still  remain¬ 
ed.  The  early  Italian  poets  gave  a  sort  of  classical 
sanction  to  its  defects ;  but  while  their  genius  may 
thus,  with  justice,  be  accused  of  scattering  the  seeds 
of  corruption,  the  soil  must  be  confessed  to  have 
been  universally  prepared  for  their  reception  at  a 
more  remote  period. 

Thus  the  metaphysical  conceits  of  Cowley’s 

r  •  -  '  *  f  .  4  •  v  V  i 

*  Every  one  is  acquainted  with  Sismondi’s  elegant  treatise  on  the 
ProvenQale  poetry.  It  cannot,  however,  now  be  relied  on  as  of  the  high¬ 
est  authority.  The  subject  has  been  much  more  fully  explored  since  the 
publication  of  his  work  by  Monsieur  Raynouard,  Secretary  of  the  French 
Academy.  His  Poesies  des  Troubadours  has  now  reached  the  sixth  vol¬ 
ume  ;  and  W.  A.  Schlegel,  in  a  treatise  of  little  bulk  but  great  learning, 
entitled  Observations  sur  la  Langue  et  la  Litterature  ProvenQale,  has  pro¬ 
nounced  it,  by  the  facts  it  has  brought  to  light,  to  have  given  the  coup  de 
grace  to  the  theory  of  Father  Andres,  whom  Sismondi  has  chiefly  fol¬ 
lowed. 


622  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

school,  which  Dr.  Johnson  has  referred  to  Marini, 
may  be  traced  through  the  poetry  of  Donne,  of 
Shakspeare  and  his  contemporaries,  of  Surrey,  Wy¬ 
att,  and  Chaucer,  up  to  the  fugitive  pieces  of  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  which  have  been 
redeemed  from  oblivion  by  the  diligence  of  the  an¬ 
tiquarian.  In  the  same  manner,  the  religious  and 
amatory  poetry  of  Spain  at  the  close  of  the  thir¬ 
teenth  century,  as  exhibited  in  their  Cancioneros , 
displays  the  same  subtleties  and  barbaric  taste  for 
ornament,  from  which  few  of  her  writers,  even  in 
the  riper  season  of  her  literature,  have  been  wholly 
uncontaminated.  Perhaps  the  perversities  of  Voi- 
ture  and  of  Scudery  may  find  as  remote  a  genealogy 
in  France.  The  corruptions  of  the  Pleiades  may 
afford  one  link  in  the  chain,  and  any  one  who  has 
leisure  might  verify  our  suggestions.  Almost  every 
modern  literature  seems  to  have  contained,  in  its 
earliest  germs,  an  active  principle  of  corruption. 
The  perpetual  lapses  into  barbarism  have  at  times 
triumphed  over  all  efforts  of  sober  criticism  ;  and  the 
perversion  of  intellect,  for  the  greater  part  of  a  cen¬ 
tury,  may  furnish  to  the  scholar  an  ample  field  for 
humiliating  reflection.  How  many  fine  geniuses  in 
the  condemned  age  of  the  seicentisti ,  wandering  after 
the  false  lights  of  Marini  and  his  school,  substituted 
cold  conceits  for  wit,  puns  for  thoughts,  and  wire¬ 
drawn  metaphors  for  simplicity  and  nature  !  How 
many,  with  Cowley,  exhausted  a  genuine  wit  in 
hunting  out  remote  analogies  and  barren  combina¬ 
tions;  or  with  Lope,  and  even  Calderon,  devoted 


da  ponte’s  observations.  623 

pages  to  curious  distortions  of  rhyme,  to  echoes  or 
acrostics,  in  scenes  which  invited  all  the  eloquence 
of  poetry  !  Prostitutions  of  genius  like  these  not 
merely  dwarf  the  human  mind,  but  carry  it  back 
centuries  to  the  scholastic  subtleties,  the  alliterations, 
anagrams,  and  thousand  puerile  devices  of  the  Mid¬ 
dle  Ages. 

But  we  have  already  rambled  too  far  from  the  au¬ 
thor  of  the  “  Osservazioni.”  Our  next  rock  of  of¬ 
fence  is  a  certain  inconsiderate  astonishment  which 
we  expressed  at  the  patience  of  his  countrymen  un¬ 
der  the  infliction  of  epics  of  thirty  and  forty  cantos 
in  length  ;  and  he  reminds  us  of  our  corresponding 
taste,  equally  unaccountable,  for  novels  and  roman¬ 
ces,  spun  out  into  an  interminable  length,  like  those, 
for  example,  by  the  author  of  Waverley  [p.  82  to 
85].  A  liberal  criticism,  we  are  aware,  will  be  dif¬ 
fident  of  censuring  the  discrepancies  of  national 
tastes.  Where  the  value  of  the  thought  is  equal,  the 
luxury  of  polished  verse  and  poetic  imagery  may 
yield  a  great  superiority  to  poetry  over  prose,  par¬ 
ticularly  with  a  people  so  sensible  to  melody  and  of 
so  vivacious  a  fancy  as  the  Italians;  but,  then,  to 
accomplish  all  this  requires  a  higher  degree  of  skill 
in  the  artist,  and  mediocrity  in  poetry  is  intolerable. 

“  Mediocribus  esse  poetis 
Non  homines,  non  Di,”  &c. 

Horace’s  maxim  is  not  the  less  true  for  being  some¬ 
what  stale.  D’Alembert  has  uttered  a  sweeping  de¬ 
nunciation  against  all  long  works  in  verse,  as  im¬ 
possible  to  be  read  through  without  experiencing 


624  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

ennui;  from  which  he  does  not  except  even  the 
masterpieces  of  antiquity.*  What  would  he  have 
said  to  a  second-rate  Italian  epic,  wiredrawn  into 
thirty  or  forty  cantos,  of  the  incredibilia  of  chivalry  ! 

The  English  novel,  if  tolerably  well  executed,  may 
convey  some  solid  instruction  in  its  details  of  life, 
of  human  character,  and  of  passion  ;  but  the  tales 
of  chivalry — the  overcharged  pictures  of  an  imagin¬ 
ary  state  of  society ;  of  “  Gorgons,  hydras,  and  chi¬ 
meras  dire” — can  be  regarded  only  as  an  intellectual 
relaxation.  In  a  less  polished  dialect,  and  in  a  sim¬ 
pler  age,  they  beguiled  the  tedious  evenings  of  our 
unlettered  Norman  ancestors,  and,  as  late  as  Eliza¬ 
beth’s  day,  they  incurred  their  parting  malediction 
from  the  worthy  Ascham,  as  “  stuff  for  wise  men  to 
laugh  at,  whose  whole  pleasure  standeth  in  open 
manslaughter  and  bold  bawdry.”  The  remarks  in 
our  article,  of  course,  had  no  reference  to  the  chef 
d oeuvres  of  their  romantic  muse,  manv  of  which  we 
had  been  diligently  commending.  It  is  the  prerog¬ 
ative  of  genius,  we  all  know,  to  consecrate  whatever 
it  touches. 

Some  other  of  our  general  remarks  seem  to  have 
been  barbed  arrows  to  the  patriot  breast  of  the  au¬ 
thor  of  the  “  Osservazioni.”  Such  are  our  reflec¬ 
tions  “  on  the  want  of  a  moral  or  philosophical  aim 
in  the  ornamental  writings  of  the  Italians  ;”  on  “  love, 
as  suggesting  the  constant  theme  and  impulse  to 
their  poets ;”  on  the  evil  tendency  of  their  language, 
in  seducing  their  writers  into  “  an  overweening  at- 

*  CEuvres  Philosophiques,  &c.,  tom.  iv.,  p.  152. 


da  ponte’s  observations.  625 

tention  to  sound.”  There  are  few  general  reflec¬ 
tions  which  have  the  good  fortune  not  to  require 
many,  and  sometimes  very  important  exceptions. 
The  physiognomy  of  a  nation,  whether  moral  or  in¬ 
tellectual,  must  be  made  up  of  those  features  which 
arrest  the  eye  most  frequently  and  forcibly  on  a 
wide  survey  of  them  ;  yet  how  many  individual  por¬ 
traits,  after  all,  may  refuse  to  correspond  with  the 
prevailing  one.  The  Boeotians  were  dull  to  a  prov¬ 
erb  ;*  yet  the  most  inspired,  in  the  most  inspired  re¬ 
gion  of  Greek  poetry,  was  a  Boeotian.  The  most 
amusing  of  Greek  prose  writers  was  a  Boeotian. 
Or,  to  take  recent  examples,  when  we  find  the  “  ac¬ 
curate  Ginguene”  speaking  of  “  the  universal  corrup¬ 
tion  of  taste  in  Italy  during  the  seventeenth  cen¬ 
tury,”  or  Sismondi  telling  us  that  “  the  abuse  of  wit 
extinguished  there,  during  that  age,  every  other  spe¬ 
cies  of  talent ,”  we  are  obviously  not  to  nail  them 
down  to  a  pedantic  precision  of  language,  or  how 
are  we  to  dispose  of  some  of  the  finest  poets  and 
scholars  Italy  has  ever  produced  ;  of  Chiabrera,  Fil- 
icaja,  Galileo,  and  other  names  sufficiently  numerous, 
to  swell  into  a  bulky  quarto  of  Tiraboschi?  The 
same  pruning  principle  applied  to  writers  who,  like 
Montesquieu,  Madame  de  Stael,  and  Schlegel,  deal 
in  general  views,  would  go  near  to  strip  them  of  all 
respect  or  credibility. 

But  it  is  frivolous  to  multiply  examples.  Dante, 
Tasso,  Alamanni,  Guidi,  Petrarch  often,  the  gener¬ 
ous  Filicaja  always,  with,  doubtless,  very  many  oth- 


*  “  Sus  Bceotica,  auris  Bceotica,  Boeoticum  ingenium.” 

4  K 


626  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


ers,  afford  an  honourable  exception  to  our  remark 
on  the  want  of  a  moral  aim  in  the  lighter  walks  of 
Italian  letters,  and  to  many  of  these,  by  indirect  crit¬ 
icism,  we  accorded  it  in  our  article.  But  let  any 
scholar  cast  his  eye  over  the  prolific  productions  of 
their  romantic  muse,  which  even  Tiraboschi  cen¬ 
sures  as  “  crude  and  insipid,”*  and  Gravina  deplores 
as  having  “  excluded  the  light  of  truth”  from  his 
countrymen  ;f  or  on  their  thousand  tales  of  pleasant¬ 
ry  and  love,  which,  since  Boccaccio’s  example,  have 
agreeably  perpetuated  the  ingenious  inventions  of  a 
barbarous  age  ;J  or  round  “  the  circle  of  frivolous  ex¬ 
travagances,”  as  Salfi§  characterizes  the  burlesque 
novelties  with  which  the  Italian  wits  have  regaled 
the  laughter-loving  appetite  of  their  nation ;  or  on 
their  hecatombs  of  amorous  lyrics  alone,  and  he  may 
accept,  in  these  saturated  varieties  of  the  national 
literature,  a  decent  apology,  if  not  an  ample  justifi¬ 
cation  for  our  assertion. 

*  Lett.  Ital.,  tom.  vii.,  P.  iii.,  s.  42.  f  Ragion  Poetica,  p.  14. 

t  The  Italian  Novelle,  it  is  well  known,  were  originally  suggested  by 
the  French  Fabliaux  of  the  12th  and  13th  centuries.  It  may  be  worthy 
of  remark,  that,  while  in  Italy  these  amusing  fictions  have  been  diligent 
ly  propagated  from  Boccaccio  to  the  present  day,  in  England,  although 
recommended  by  a  genius  like  Chaucer,  they  have  scarcely  been  adopted 
by  a  single  writer.  The  same  may  be  said  of  them  in  France,  their  na¬ 
tive  soil,  with  perhaps  a  solitary  exception  in  the  modern  imitations  by 
La  Fontaine,  himself  inimitable. 

<$>  This  learned  Italian  is  now  employed  in  completing  the  unfinished 
history  of  M.  Ginguene.  With  deference  to  the  opinions  of  the  author 
of  the  “  Osservazioni”  (vide  p.  115,  116),  we  think  he  has  shown  in  it  a 
more  independent  and  impartial  criticism  than  his  predecessor.  His 
own  countrymen  seem  to  be  of  the  same  opinion,  and  in  a  recent  flat¬ 
tering  notice  of  his  work  they  have  qualified  their  general  encomium  with 
more  than  one  rebuke  on  the  severity  of  his  strictures.  Vide  Antologia 
for  April,  1824. 


DA  ponte’s  observations.  627 

But  are  vve  not  to  speak  of  “  love  as  furnishing 
the  great  impulse  to  the  Italian  poet,”  and  “  as  pre¬ 
vailing  in  his  bosom  far  over  every  other  affection 
or  relation  in  life  ?”  Have  not  their  most  illustrious 
writers,  Dante,  Petrarch,  Boccaccio,  Sannazarius, 
Tasso,  nay,  philosophic  prelates  like  Bembo,  politic 
statesmen  like  Lorenzo,  embalmed  the  names  of 
their  mistresses  in  verse,  until  they  have  made  them 
familiar  in  every  corner  of  Italy  as  their  own  ?  Is 
not  nearly  half  of  the  miscellaneous  selection  of  lyr¬ 
ics,  in  the  vulgar  edition  of  “  Italian  classics,”  exclu¬ 
sively  amatory  ?  Had  Milton,  Dryden,  Pope,  or, 
still  more,  such  solid  personages  as  Bishop  Warbur- 
ton  or  Dr.  Johnson  (whose  “Tetty,”  we  suspect, 
never  stirred  the  doctor’s  poetic  feeling),  dedicated, 
not  a  passing  sonnet,  but  whole  volumes  to  their 
Beatrices,  Lauras,  and  Leonoras,  we  think  a  critic 
might  well  be  excused  in  regarding  the  tender  pas¬ 
sion  as  the  vivida  vis  of  the  English  author.  Let 
us  not  be  misunderstood,  however,  as  implying  that 
nothing  but  this  amorous  incense  escapes  from  the 
Italian  lyric  muse.  To  the  exceptions  which  the 
author  of  the  Osservazioni  has  enumerated,  he  might 
have  added,  had  not  his  modesty  forbidden  him,  as 
inferior  to  none,  the  sacred  melodies  which  adorn 
his  own  autobiography ;  above  all,  the  magnificent 
canzone  on  the  “  Death  of  Leopold,”  which  can  de¬ 
rive  nothing  from  our  commendation,  when  a  critic 
like  Mathias  has  declared  it  to  have  “  secured  to  its 
author  a  place  on  the  Italian  Parnassus,  by  the  side 
of  Petrarch  and  Chiabrera.”* 

*  A  letter  from  Mr.  Mathias,  which  fell  into  our  hands  some  time 


628  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

As  to  our  remark  on  the  tendency  of  the  soft  Ital¬ 
ian  tones  “  to  seduce  their  writers  into  an  overween¬ 
ing  attention  to  sound,”  we  are  surprised  that  this 
should  have  awakened  two  such  grave  pages  of  ad¬ 
monition  from  our  censor.  Why,  we  were  speak¬ 
ing  of 

“  The  Tuscan’s  siren  tongue, 

That  music  in  itself,  whose  sounds  are  song.” 

We  thought  the  remark  had  been  as  true  as  it  was 
old.  We  cannot  but  think  there  is  something  in  it, 
even  now,  as  we  are  occasionally  lost  in  the  mellif¬ 
luous  redundances  of  Bembo  or  Boccaccio,  those 
celebrated  models  of  Italian  eloquence.  At  any  rate, 
our  remark  fell  far  short  of  the  candid  confession  of 
Bettinelli,  who,  in  speaking  of  historical  writing,  ob¬ 
serves  that  “  in  this,  as  in  every  other  department  of 

r 

literature,  his  countrymen  have  been  more  solicitous 
about  style,  and  ingenious  turns  of  thought,  than 
utility  or  good  philosophy.”* 

But  we  must  hasten  to  the  last,  not  by  any  means 
the  least  offence  recorded  on  the  roll  of  our  enormi¬ 
ties.  This  is  an  ill-omened  stricture  on  the  poetical 
character  of  Metastasio,  for  which  the  author  of  the 
Osservazioni ,  after  lavishing  upon  him  a  shower  of 
golden  compliments  at  our  expense,  proceeds  to  cen¬ 
sure  us  as  “  wanting  in  respect  to  this  famous  man ; 
as  perspicacious  only  in  detecting  blemishes ;  as 

since,  concludes  a  complimentary  analysis  of  the  above  canzone  with 
this  handsome  eulogium  :  “After  having  read  and  reflected  much  on  this 
wonderful  production,  I  believe  that,  if  Petrarch  could  have  heard  it,  he 
would  have  assigned  to  its  author  a  seat  very  near  to  his  own,  without 
requiring  any  other  evidence  of  his  vivacious,  copious,  and  sublime 
genius.”  *  Risorg.  d’ltalia  Introduz.,  tom.  i.,  p.  14. 


DA  PONTE  S  OBSERVATIONS. 


629 


guilty  of  extravagant  and  unworthy  expressions, 
which  prove  that  we  cannot  have  read  or  digested 
the  works  of  this  exalted  dramatist,  nor  those  of  his 
biographers,  nor  of  his  critics.” — P.  98-111.  And 
what,  think  you,  gentle  reader,  invited  these  unsa¬ 
voury  rebukes,  with  the  dozen  pages  of  panegyrical 
accompaniment  on  his  predecessor?  “The  melo¬ 
dious  rhythm  of  Tasso’s  verse  has  none  of  the  monot¬ 
onous  siceetness  so  cloying  in  Metastasio In  this 
italicised  line  lies  the  whole  of  our  offending ;  no 
more. 

We  shall  consult  the  comfort  of  our  readers  by 
disposing  of  this  point  as  briefly  as  possible.  We 
certainly  do  not  feel,  and  we  will  not  affect,  that 
profound  veneration  for  Metastasio  which  the  author 
of  the  Osservazioni  professes,  and  which  may  have 
legitimately  descended  to  him  with  the  inheritance 
of  the  Caesarean  laurel.  We  have  always  looked 
upon  his  operas  as  exhibiting  an  effeminacy  of  sen¬ 
timent,  a  violent  contrivance  of  incident,  and  an  ex¬ 
travagance  of  character,  that  are  not  wholly  to  be 
vindicated  by  the  constitution  of  the  Musical  Drama. 
But  nothing  of  all  this  was  intimated  in  our  unfor¬ 
tunate  suggestion  ;  and  as  we  are  unwilling  to  star¬ 
tle  anew  the  principles  or  prejudices  of  our  highly 
respectable  censor,  we  shall  content  ourselves  with 
bringing  into  view  one  or  two  stout  authorities,  be¬ 
hind  whom  we  might  have  intrenched  ourselves, 
and  resign  the  field  to  him. 

The  author  has  presented  his  readers  with  an  ab¬ 
stract  of  about  forty  pages  of  undiluted  commenda- 


630  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

tion  on  his  favourite  poet,  by  the  Spaniard  Arteaga. 
We  have  no  objection  to  this ;  but,  while  he  recom¬ 
mends  them  as  the  opinions  of  “  a  learned,  judicious, 
and  indubitably  impartial  critic,”  we  think  it  would 
have  been  fair  to  temper  these  forty  pages  of  com¬ 
mendation  with  some  allusion  to  five-and- thirty  pa¬ 
ges  of  almost  unmitigated  censure  which  immediate¬ 
ly  follow  them.*  In  the  course  of  this  censorious 
analysis,  it  may  be  noticed  that  the  “impartial  Arte¬ 
aga,”  speaking  of  the  common  imputation  of  monot¬ 
ony  in  the  structure  of  Metastasio  s  verse ,  and  of  his 
periods,  far  from  acquitting  him,  expressly  declines 
passing  judgment  upon  it. 

But  we  may  find  ample  countenance  for  our  “  ir- 

/— 

reverent  opinion”  in  that  of  Ugo  Foscolo,  a  name 
of  high  consideration  both  as  a  poet  and  a  critic, 
and  whom,  for  his  perspicacity  in  the  latter  vocation, 
our  author,  on  another  occasion,  has  himself  cited 
and  eulogized  as  his  “  magnus  Apollo.”  Speaking 
incidentally  of  Metastasio,  he  observes  :  “  To  please 
the  court  of  Vienna,  the  musicians,  and  the  public 
of  his  day,  and  to  gratify  the  delicacy  of  his  own 
feminine  taste,  Metastasio  has  reduced  his  language 
and  versification  to  so  limited  a  number  of  words , 
phrases,  and  cadences ,  that  they  seem  always  the  same, 
and  in  the  end  produce  only  the  effect  of  a  flute, 
which  conveys  rather  delightful  melody  than  quick 
and  distinct  sensations.”!  To  precisely  the  same 
effect  speaks  W.  A.  Schlegel,  in  his  eighth  lecture 

*  Le  Rivoluzioni  del  Teatro  Musicale,  &c.,  p.  375-410. 

f  Essays  on  Petrarch,  p.  93. 


da  ponte’s  observations.  631 

on  Dramatic  Literature,  whose  acknowledged  excel¬ 
lence  in  this  particular  department  of  criticism  may 
induce  us  to  quote  him,  although  a  foreigner.  These 
authorities  are  too  pertinent  and  explicit  to  require 
the  citation  of  any  other,  or  to  make  it  necessary, 
by  a  prolix  but  easy  enumeration  of  extracts  from 
the  poet,  more  fully  to  establish  our  position. 

“  Hie  aliquid  plus 
Quam  satis  est.” 

We  believe  we  are  quite  as  weary  as  our  readers 
of  the  very  disagreeable  office  of  dwelling  on  the  de¬ 
fects  of  a  literature  so  beautiful,  and  for  which  we 
feel  so  sincere  an  admiration,  as  the  Italian.  The 
severe  impeachment  made,  both  upon  the  spirit  and 
the  substance  of  our  former  remarks,  by  so  accom¬ 
plished  a  scholar  as  the  author  of  the  Osservazioni , 
has  necessarily  compelled  us  to  this  course  in  self- 
defence.  The  tedious  parade  of  citations  must  be 
excused  by  the  necessity  of  buoying  up  our  opinions 
in  debatable  matters  of  taste  by  those  whose  author¬ 
ity  alone  our  censor  is  disposed  to  admit — that  of 
his  own  countrymen.  He  has  emphatically  repeat¬ 
ed  his  distrust  of  the  capacity  of  foreigners  to  decide 
upon  subjects  of  literary  taste  ;  yet  the  extraordi¬ 
nary  diversity  of  opinion  manifest  between  him  and 
those  eminent  authorities  whom  we  have  quoted 
might  lead  us  to  anticipate  but  little  correspondence 
in  the  national  criticism.  An  acquaintance  with 
Italian  history  will  not  serve  to  diminish  our  suspi¬ 
cions  ;  and  the  feuds  which,  from  the  learned  but 
querulous  scholars  of  the  fifteenth  century  to  those 


632  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

of  our  own  time,  have  divided  her  republic  of  letters, 
have  not  been  always  carried  on  with  the  bloodless 
weapons  of  scholastic  controversy.* 

That  some  assertions  too  unqualified,  some  errors 
or  prejudices  should  have  escaped,  in  the  course  of 
fifty  or  sixty  pages  of  remark,  is  to  be  expected  from 
the  most  circumspect  pen ;  but  a  benevolent  critic, 
instead  of  fastening  upon  these,  will  embrace  the 
spirit  of  the  whole,  and  by  this  interpret  and  excuse 
any  specific  inaccuracy.  It  may  not  be  easy  to 
come  up  to  the  standard  of  our  author’s  principles, 
it  may  be  his  partialities,  in  estimating  the  intellect¬ 
ual  character  of  his  country ;  but  we  think  we  cau 
detect  one  source  of  his  dissatisfaction  with  us,  in 
his  misconception  of  our  views,  which,  according  to 
him,  were,  that  “  a  particular  knowledge  of  the  Ital¬ 
ian  should  be  widely  diffused  in  America.”  This  he 
quotes  and  requotes  with  peculiar  emphasis,  object¬ 
ing  it  to  us  as  perfectly  inconsistent  with  our  style 
of  criticism.  Now,  in  the  first  place,  we  made  no 
such  declaration.  We  intended  only  to  give  a  ve¬ 
racious  analysis  of  one  branch  of  Italian  letters.  But, 
secondly,  had  such  been  our  design,  we  doubt  ex¬ 
ceedingly,  or,  rather,  we  do  not  doubt,  whether  the 
best  way  of  effecting  it  would  be  by  indiscriminate 

*  Take  two  familiar  examples  :  that  of  Caro  and  that  of  Marini.  The 
adversary  of  the  former  poet,  accused  of  murder,  heresy,  &c.,  was  con¬ 
demned  by  the  Inquisition,  and  compelled  to  seek  his  safety  in  exile. 
The  adversary  of  Marini,  in  an  attempt  to  assassinate  him,  fortunately 
shot  only  a  courtier  of  the  King  of  Sardinia.  In  both  cases,  the  wits  of 
Italy,  ranged  under  opposite  banners,  fought  with  incredible  acrimony 
during  the  greater  part  of  a  century.  The  subject  of  fierce  dispute,  in 
both  instances,  was  a  sonnet ! 


da  ponte’s  observations. 


633 


panegyric.  The  amplification  of  beauties,  and  the 
prudish  concealment  of  all  defects,  would  carry  with 
it  an  air  of  insincerity  that  must  dispose  the  mind 
of  every  ingenuous  reader  to  reject  it.  Perfection 
is  not  the  lot  of  humanity  more  in  Italy  than  else¬ 
where.  Such  intemperate  panegyric  is,  moreover, 
unworthy  of  the  great  men  who  are  the  objects  of 
it.  They  really  shine  with  too  brilliant  a  light  to 
be  darkened  by  a  few  spots ;  and  to  be  tenacious  of 
their  defects  is  in  some  measure  to  distrust  their 
genius.  Rien  nest  beau,  que  le  vrai,  is  the  familiar 
reflection  of  a  critic,  whose  general  maxims  in  his 
art  are  often  more  sound  than  their  particular  appli¬ 
cation. 

Notwithstanding  the  difficulty  urged  by  Mr.  Da 
Ponte  of  forming  a  correct  estimate  of  a  foreign  lan¬ 
guage,  the  science  of  general  literary  criticism  and 
history,  which  may  be  said  to  have  entirely  grown 
up  within  the  last  fifty  years,  has  done  much  to  erad¬ 
icate  prejudice  and  enlarge  the  circle  of  genuine 
knowledge.  A  century  and  a  half  ago,  “  the  best 
of  English  critics,”*  in  the  opinion  of  Pope  and  Dry- 
den,  could  institute  a  formal  examination,  and,  of 
course,  condemnation  of  the  plays  of  Shakspeare  “by 
the  practice  of  the  ancients.”  The  best  of  French 
critics, f  in  the  opinion  of  every  one,  could  condemn 
the  “  Orlando  Furioso”  for  wandering  from  the  rules 

*  “  The  Tragedies  of  the  last  Age,  considered  and  examined  by  the 
practice  of  the  Ancients,”  &c.  By  Thomas  Rymer.  London,  1678. 

f  “Dissertation  Critique  sur  l’A venture  de  Joconde.”  CEuvres  de 
Boileau,  tom.  ii. 

4  L 


634  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 


of  Horace ;  even  Addison,  in  bis  triumphant  vindi¬ 
cation  of  the  “  Paradise  Lost,”  seems  most  solicitous 
to  prove  its  conformity  with  the  laws  of  Aristotle ; 
and  a  writer  like  Lope  de  Vega  felt  obliged  to  apol¬ 
ogize  for  the  independence  with  which  he  deviated 
from  the  dogmas  of  the  same  school,  and  adapted  his 
beautiful  inventions  in  the  drama  to  the  peculiar 
genius  of  his  own  country  men  A  The  magnificent 
fables  of  Ariosto  and  Spencer  were  stigmatized  as 
barbarous ,  because  they  were  not  classical;  and  the 
polite  scholars  of  Europe  sneered  at  “  the  bad  taste 
which  could  prefer  an  ‘Ariosto  to  a  Virgil,  a  Ro¬ 
mance  to  an  Iliad.’  ”f  But  the  reconciling  spirit  of 
modern  criticism  has  interfered  ;  the  character,  the 
wants  of  different  nations  and  ages  have  been  con¬ 
sulted  ;  from  the  local  beauties  peculiar  to  each,  the 
philosophic  inquirer  has  deduced  certain  general 
principles  of  beauty  applicable  to  all;  petty  national 
prejudices  have  been  extinguished;  and  a  difference 
of  taste,  which  for  that  reason  alone  was  before 

*  “Arte  de  hacer  Comedias.”  Obras  Sueltas,  tom.  iv.,  p.  406. 

Y  quando  he  de  escribir  una  Comedia, 

Encierro  los  preceptos  con  seis  Haves  ; 

Saco  a  Terencio  y  Plauto  de  mi  estudio 
Para  que  no  me  den  voces,  que  suele 
Dar  gritos  la  verdad  en  libros  mudos,  &c. 

f  See  Lord  Shaftesbury’s  “Advice  to  an  Author a  treatise  of  great 
authority  in  its  day,  but  which  could  speak  of  the  “  Gothic  Muse  of 
Shakspeare,  Fletcher,  and  Milton  as  lisping  with  stammering  tongues, 
that  nothing  but  the  youth  and  rawness  of  the  age  could  excuse !”  Sir 
William  Temple,  with  a  purer  taste,  is  not  more  liberal.  The  term 
Gothic ,  with  these  writers,  is  applied  to  much  the  same  subjects  with 
the  modern  term  Romantic,  with  this  difference  :  the  latter  is  simply  dis¬ 
tinctive,  while  the  former  was  also  an  opprobrious  epithet. 


da  ponte’s  observations. 


635 


condemned  as  a  deformity,  is  now  admired  as  a 
beautiful  variety  in  the  order  of  nature. 

The  English,  it  must  he  confessed,  can  take  little 
credit  to  themselves  for  this  improvement.  Their 
researches  in  literary  history  amount  to  little  in  their 
own  language,  and  to  nothing  in  any  other.  War- 
ton,  Johnson,  and  Campbell  have  indeed  furnished 
an  accurate  inventory  of  their  poetical  wealth  ;  but, 
except  it  he  in  the  limited  researches  of  Drake  and 
of  Dunlop,  what  record  have  we  of  all  their  rich  and 
various  prose  ?  As  to  foreign  literature,  while  other 
cultivated  nations  have  been  developing  their  views 
in  voluminous  and  valuable  treatises,  the  English 
have  been  profoundly  mute.*  Yet  for  several  rea¬ 
sons  they  might  be  expected  to  make  the  best  gen¬ 
eral  critics  in  the  world,  and  the  collision  of  their 

*  The  late  translation  of  Sismondi’s  “  Southern  Europe”  is  the  only 
one,  we  believe,  which  the  English  possess  of  a  detailed  literary  history. 
The  discriminating  taste  of  this  sensible  Frenchman  has  been  liberal¬ 
ized  by  his  familiarity  with  the  languages  of  the  North.  His  knowl¬ 
edge,  however,  is  not  always  equal  to  his  subject,  and  the  credit  of  his 
opinions  is  not  unfrequently  due  to  another.  The  historian  of  the  “  Ital¬ 
ian  Republics”  may  be  supposed  to  be  at  home  in  treating  of  Italian  let¬ 
ters,  and  this  is  undoubtedly  the  strongest  part  of  his  work ;  but  in 
what  relates  to  Spain,  he  has  helped  himself  “  manibus  plenis”  from 
Bouterwek,  much  too  liberally,  indeed,  for  the  scanty  acknowledgments 
made  by  him  to  the  accurate  and  learned  German.  Page  upon  page  is 
literally  translated  from  him.  Sismondi’s  work,  however,  is  intrinsically 
valuable  for  its  philosophical  illustrations  of  the  character  of  the  Span¬ 
iards,  by  the  peculiarities  of  their  literature.  His  analysis  of  the  na¬ 
tional  drama,  as  opposed  to  that  of  Schlegel,  is  also  extremely  inge¬ 
nious.  Is  it  not  more  sound  than  that  of  the  German1?  We  trust  that 
this  hitherto  untrodden  field  in  our  language  will  be  entered  before  long 
by  one  of  our  own  scholars,  whose  researches  have  enabled  him  to  go 
much  more  extensively  into  the  Spanish  department  than  either  of  his 
predecessors. 


636  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

judgments  in  this  matter  with  those  of  the  other  Eu¬ 
ropean  scholars,  might  produce  new  and  important 
results. 

The  author  of  the  Osservazioni  has  accused  us  of 
being  too  much  under  the  influence  of  his  enemies, 
the  French  (p.  112).  There  are  slender  grounds  for 
this  imputation.  We  have  always  looked  upon  this 
fastidious  people  as  the  worst  general  critics  possible; 
and  we  scarcely  once  alluded  to  their  opinions  in 
the  course  of  our  article  without  endeavouring  to 
controvert  them.  The  truth  is,  while  they  have  con¬ 
trived  their  own  system  with  infinite  skill,  and  are 
exceedingly  acute  in  detecting  the  least  violation  of 
it,  they  seem  incapable  of  understanding  why  it 
should  not  be  applied  to  every  other  people,  however 
opposite  its  character  from  their  own.  The  conse¬ 
quence  is  obvious.  Voltaire,  whose  elevated  views 
sometimes  advanced  him  to  the  level  of  the  generous 
criticism  of  our  own  day,  is  by  no  means  an  excep¬ 
tion.  His  Commentaries  on  Corneille  are  filled  with 
the  finest  reflections  imaginable  on  that  eminent  poet, 
or,  rather,  on  the  French  drama  ;  but  the  application 
of  these  same  principles  to  the  productions  of  his 
neighbours  leads  him  into  the  grossest  absurdities. 
“Addison’s  Cato  is  the  only  well-written  tragedy  in 
England.”  “  Hamlet  is  a  barbarous  production,  that 
would  not  be  endured  by  the  meanest  populace  in 
France  or  Italy.”  “Lope  de  Vega  and  Calderon 
familiarized  their  countrymen  with  all  the  extrava¬ 
gances  of  a  gross  and  ridiculous  drama.”  But  the 
French  theatre,  modelled  upon  the  ancient  Greek, 


DA  PONTe’s  OBSERVATIONS. 


637 


can  boast  “  of  more  than  twenty  pieces  which  sur¬ 
pass  their  most  admirable  chef  d’ oeuvres,  without  ex¬ 
cepting  those  of  Sophocles  or  Euripides.”  So  in 
other  walks  of  poetry,  Milton,  Tasso,  Ercilla,  occa¬ 
sionally  fare  no  better.  Who  would  dare  to  talk 
to  Boileau,  Racine,  Moliere,  of  an  epic  poem  upon 
Adam  and  Eve!  Voltaire  had  one  additional  rea¬ 
son  for  the  exaltation  of  his  native  literature  at  the 
expense  of  every  other  :  he  was  himself  at  the  head, 
or  aspired  to  be  of  every  department  in  it. 

Madame  de  Stael  is  certainly  an  eminent  excep¬ 
tion,  in  very  many  particulars,  to  the  general  charac¬ 
ter  of  her  nation.  Her  defects,  indeed,  are  rather 
of  an  opposite  cast.  Instead  of  the  narrowness  of 
conventional  precept,  she  may  be  sometimes  accused 
of  vague  and  visionary  theory  ;  instead  of  nice  spe¬ 
cific  details,  of  dealing  too  freely  in  abstract  and  in¬ 
dependent  propositions.  Her  faults  are  of  the  Ger¬ 
man  school,  which  she  may  have  in  part  imbibed 
from  her  intimacy  with  their  literature  (no  common 
circumstance  with  her  countrymen),  from  her  resi¬ 
dence  in  Germany,  and  from  her  long  intimacy  with 
one  of  its  most  distinguished  scholars,  who  lived  un¬ 
der  the  same  roof  with  her  for  many  years.  But, 
with  all  her  faults,  she  is  entitled  to  the  praise  of  hav¬ 
ing  showed  a  more  enlarged  and  truly  philosophical 
spirit  of  criticism  than  any  of  her  countrymen. 

The  English  have  never  yielded  to  the  arbitrary 
legislation  of  academies  ;  their  literature  has  at  dif¬ 
ferent  periods  exhibited  all  the  varieties  of  culture 
which  have  prevailed  over  the  other  European 


638  BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  CRITICAL  MISCELLANIES. 

tongues ;  and  their  language,  derived  both  from  the 
Latin  and  the  Teutonic  idiom,  affords  them  a  much 
greater  facility  for  entering  into  the  spirit  of  foreign 
letters  than  can  be  enjoyed  by  any  other  European 
people,  whose  language  is  derived  almost  exclusively 
from  one  or  the  other  of  these  elements.  With  all 
these  peculiar  facilities  for  literary  history  and  crit¬ 
icism,  why,  with  their  habitual  freedom  of  thought, 
have  they  remained  in  it,  so  far  behind  most  other 
cultivated  nations  ? 


THE  END. 


Valuable  lllorks  for  Reference 

PUBLISHED  BY 

s 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK, 


Webster’s  Dictionary  of  the  English  Language. 

Exhibiting  the  Origin,  Orthography,  Pronunciation,  and  Definitions  of 
Words.  Abridged  from  the  Quarto  Edition  of  the  Author.  To  which 
are  added,  a  Synopsis  of  Words  differently  Pronounced  by  different 
Orthoepists  ;  and  Walker’s  Key  to  the  Classical  Pronunciation  of 
Greek,  Latin,  and  Scripture  Proper  Names.  A  new  Edition,  revised 
and  enlarged  by  Chauncey  A.  Goodrich,  Professor  in  Yale  College. 
With  the  Addition  of  a  Vocabulary  of  modern  Geographical  Names, 
with  their  Pronunciation.  8vo,  Sheep  extra,  $3  50. 

McCulloch’s  Universal  Gazetteer. 

A  Dictionary,  Geographical,  Statistical,  and  Historical,  of  the  various 
Countries,  Places,  and  principal  Natural  Objects  in  the  World.  In 
which  the  Articles  relating  to  the  United  States  are  re-written,  multi¬ 
plied,  and  extended,  and  adapted  to  the  present  Condition  of  the  Coun¬ 
try,  and  to  the  Wants  of  its  Citizens,  by  Daniel  Haskel,  A.M.  With 
Seven  Maps.  2  vols.  8vo,  Muslin,  $6  00  ;  Sheep  extra,  $6  50. 

Brown’s  Dictionary  of  the  Holy  Bible. 

Containing  an  Historical  Account  of  the  Persons  ;  a  Geographical  and 
Historical  Account  of  the  Places ;  a  Literal,  Critical,  and  Systemat¬ 
ical  Description  of  other  Objects,  whether  Natural,  Artificial,  Civil, 
Religious,  or  Military  ;  and  an  Explanation  of  the  appellative  Terms 
mentioned  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments :  the  whole  comprising 
whatever  important  is  known  concerning  the  Antiquities  of  the  He¬ 
brew  Nation  and  Church  of  God  ;  forming  a  Sacred  Commentary,  a 
Body  of  Scripture  History,  Chronology,  and  Divinity ;  and  serving  in 
a  great  measure  as  a  Concordance  to  the  Holy  Bible.  With  the  Au¬ 
thor’s  last  Additions  and  Corrections,  and  further  enlarged  and  cor¬ 
rected  by  his  Sons.  Also,  a  Life  of  the  Author,  and  an  Essay  on  the 
Evidence  of  Christianity.  8vo,  Sheep  extra,  $1  75. 

Gardner’s  Medical  Dictionary. 

Containing  an  Explanation  of  the  Terms  in  Anatomy,  Human  and 
Comparative,  Physiology,  Practice  of  Medicine,  Obstetrics,  Surgery, 
Therapeutics,  Materia  Medica,  Chemistry,  Botany,  Natural  Philoso¬ 
phy,  with  the  Formulas  of  the  principal  Pharmacopoeias,' and  valuable 
practical  Articles  on  the  Treatment  of  Disease.  On  the  Basis  of 
Hooper  and  Grant.  Adapted  to  the  present  State  of  Science,  and  for 
the  Use  of  Medical  Students  and  the  Profession.  8vo,  Sheep  extra, 
$2  50. 

Andrews’s  Latin-English  Lexicon. 

Royal  8vo.  (In  press.) 


2 


Valuable  Works  for  Reference. 

Drisler’s  English-Greek  Lexicon. 

A  new  and  copious  Work,  drawn  from  the  best  Sources.  8vo.  (In 
press.) 

A  Dictionary  of  Science,  Literature,  and  Art  : 

Comprising  the  History,  Description,  and  Scientific  Principles  of  every 
Branch  of  Human  Knowledge;  with  the  Derivation  and  Definition  of 
all  the  Terms  in  general  Use.  Edited  by  W.  T.  Brande,  F.R.S.L. 
and  E.,  assisted  by  Joseph  Cauvin,  Esq.  The  various  Departments 
by  eminent  Literary  and  Scientific  Gentlemen.  Illustrated  by  numer¬ 
ous  Engravings  on  Wood.  8vo,  Sheep  extra,  $4  00. 

The  Farmer’s  Dictionary. 

A  Vocabulary  of  the  Technical  Terms  recently  introduced  into  Agri¬ 
culture  and  Horticulture  from  various  Sciences,  and  also  a  Compendi¬ 
um  of  Practical  Farming;  the  latter  chiefly  from  the  Works  of  the 
Rev.  W.  L.  Rham,  Loudon,  Low,  and  Youatt,  and  the  most  eminent 
American  Authors.  Edited  by  D.  P.  Gardner,  M.D.  With  numerous 
Illustrations.  12mo,  Muslin.  $1  50;  Sheep  extra,  $1  75. 

Anthon’s  Classical  Dictionary. 

Containing  an  Account  of  the  principal  Proper  Names  mentioned  in 
Ancient  Authors,  together  with  an  Account  of  the  Coins,  Weights,  and 
Measures  of  the  Ancients,  with  Tabular  Values  of  the  same.  Royal 
8vo,  Sheep  extra,  $4  00. 

Smith’s  Dictionary  of  G  reek  and  Roman  Antiqui¬ 
ties.  First  American  Edition,  corrected  and  enlarged,  and  containing 
also  numerous  Articles  relative  to  the  Botany,  Mineralogy,  and  Zoolo¬ 
gy  of  the  Ancients,  by  Charles  Anthon,  LL.D.  Illustrated  by  a  large 
number  of  Engravings.  Royal  8vo,  Sheep  extra,  $4  00. 

Smith’s  School  Dictionary  of  Antiquities. 

Abridged  from  the  larger  Dictionary.  With  Corrections  and  Improve¬ 
ments,  by  C.  Anthon,  LL.D.  Illustrated  with  numerous  Engravings. 
12mo,  half  Sheep,  90  cents. 

Riddle  and  Arnold’s  English-Latin  Lexicon. 

Founded  on  the  German-Latin  Dictionary  of  Dr.  Charles  Ernest  Georg¬ 
es.  8vo.  (In  press.) 

Cobh’s  Miniature  Lexicon  of  the  English  Language. 

With  a  Portrait  of  the  Author.  48mo,  Muslin,  50  cents ;  Pocket- 
book  form,  $1  00;  Calf  or  Turkey  Morocco,  gilt  edges,  $1  25. 

Haswell’s  Engineers’  and  Mechanics’  Pocket-hook, 

Containing  United  States  and  Foreign  Weights  and  Measures  ;  Tables 
of  Areas  and  Circumferences  of  Circles,  Circular  Segments,  and  Zones 
of  a  Circle ;  Squares  and  Cubes,  Square  and  Cube  Roots  ;  Lengths  ol 
Circular  and  Semi-elliptic  Arcs  ;  and  Rules  of  Arithmetic.  Mensura¬ 
tion  of  Surfaces  and  Solids ;  the  Mechanical  Powers ;  Geometry, 
Trigonometry,  Gravity,  Strength  of  Materials,  Water  Wheels,  Hydrau¬ 
lics,  Hydrostatics,  Pneumatics,  Statics,  Dynamics,  Gunnery,  Heat, 
Winding  Engines,  Tonnage,  Shot,  Shells,  &c.  Steam  and  the  Steam- 
engine  ;  Combustion,  Water,  Cables  and  Anchors,  Fuel,  Air,  Guns, 
<fcc.  Tables  of  the  Weights  of  Metals,  Pipes,  &c.  Miscellaneous 
Notes  and  Exercises,  &c.  12mo,  Pocket-book  form,  $1  25. 


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